The Measure of Machines
by biqua
Summary: Dune Yuo isn't quite sure what to make of her new commander. She joined the Republic Military three years into the Cold War, while her CO has seen real action in the six years since the Treaty of Coruscant was signed, and Badri Emras has lost nearly everything as a result. But just when things are starting to look up for Badri and his team, everything goes horribly wrong...
1. Chapter 1

AN: This fic continues from the events of _The Measure of Friendship_ , although it isn't necessary to read that one first. I would recommend it, but I actually wrote and posted this one first, so you should be able to understand it without reading TMoF. The first two chapters actually cover the time and events of TMoF at an accelerated pace, and from different POVs.

Warnings: Major character death, minor graphic descriptions, strong language, suicidal thoughts and actions. This is not a happy fic.

* * *

"Reporting for duty, sir."

The major looked up from his paperwork. "Sergeant Emras?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," Badri said.

"You've been assigned your first command. Quite impressive, really."

"Command?" Badri asked in disbelief. "Me?"

"Yes," the major said. "Your record has been outstanding, to say the least. Other than the Camooine mission—" Badri stiffened involuntarily at the mention, "—your missions have all been successes. Your record is spotless, no disciplinary issues and all glowing recommendations. Your team is waiting down the hall."

"My team?" Badri asked in shock.

"Your team. I wouldn't keep them waiting, if I were you," he said with a smile, blue eyes hiding his laughter.

* * *

Badri, still half in shock, wandered down the hall. Only one other room, so that must be it, he thought. He stood just outside the line of sight for anyone inside. How will they react to me? Cybernetics aren't all that common. For that matter, how will I react to them? This is my first team. Chances are, I'll probably screw something up. Might as well get this over with.

He took a breath and walked in, looking straight ahead with as much authority as he could muster.  
There were three inside. The first one Badri saw was human, male, with hair that seemed to spring up from his hair in every direction. The one standing next to him was Mirialan, also male. The dark triangular tattoos on his cheekbones and forehead stood out against his green skin. The third was human as well, but female. Her hair was cut short, almost shaved, and she was first to notice him.

"Hello," Badri said, trying to keep his voice clear and authoritative. "I am Sergeant Badri Emras." The three snapped to attention, and Badri laughed. "At ease," he said. "We're just getting to know each other. I'm going to be your commanding officer on the field, and I need to be able to trust all of you out there. I hope you can trust me as well," he added with a smile. "A team divided is never going to accomplish anything worthwhile.

"I seem to be at a disadvantage, here," he continued. "You know who I am, but I'm afraid I only got this assignment now, so I don't know all of you."

The Mirialan was the first to speak up. "My name is Iscom Rigil, rank Corporal," he said. "I will be serving as the team's field doctor."

"I'm Private Chertan Brash," the other male said. "No special training; I only joined last year."

"And I'm Private Dune Yuo," said the female. "This is my first assignment," she said nervously.

"Well, now that we know each other's names," Badri said, "I think it's time we got to know each other better. Seeing as we don't have any assignments currently, I recommend the cantina."

"You paying, Sergeant?" Brash asked with a smirk.

"It seems only fair," Badri said with a smile. "I take no responsibility for your actions there, though. This will be strictly off-duty socializing."

"I'm in," Brash said. Rigil and Yuo exchanged a glance that clearly said "Why not?"

Badri smiled. Maybe this wasn't going to be as hard as he thought.

* * *

"You're kidding!" Brash exclaimed.

"How did you manage to make it off of Korriban alive?" Rigil asked, setting down his drink.

"Lots of blaster fire," Emras said, "and a damn good team. Teamwork, that's what it is," he said, pointing a finger at each of them in turn. "I never would have gone on that hellhole if it weren't for my team. And none of us would have made it out of there if it wasn't for teamwork. And blasters. Blasters are pretty important too."

Dune started to laugh, but ended up hiccupping instead. She wasn't used to drinking. She had been in a cantina maybe three or four times in her life, and never stopped to have a drink.

This was her first major team assignment, and she was admittedly nervous. On top of that, she had never actually met a cyborg before. Dune tried not to judge on species, but it was hard sometimes. However, Emras seemed pretty normal. He only had an eyepatch over his left eye, and a band that went around the back of his head, under his hair, ending up with a faintly glowing light over each temple. Not very different, all things considered.

"Never underestimate a good blaster," Rigil said knowingly, taking another sip of his drink.

The conversation was never very deep, and was mostly stories of crazy missions that Emras or Rigil had gone on, but it was enough to break the ice. Maybe, Dune thought, just maybe, this will all work out.

* * *

 _Four months later_

* * *

"Corporal, I wish I could say this was a surprise," Badri said as Rigil opened the door to his office, "but I have a feeling I know what this is about."

"I think you do, sir, and I hope you know I don't mean any offence by it," Rigil said stiffly.

"Come in and sit down," Badri said. "Let's make this informal. I don't want to have to report any of this."

"Sir?" Rigil asked.

"No sir. Just Badri," he said firmly. "Pretend we're in a cantina. I'm sorry I don't actually have a drink to pull out here. It would probably make this easier," he smiled, pulling his chair out from behind the desk to face the chair that had sat in front. Rigil took the seat.

"This is about the incidents, right?" Badri asked.

"Three in the past two weeks, Badri," Rigil said. "All officers. All cyborgs. And all of them tried to turn on their own men."

Badri sighed. "I wish I had some sort of answer for you—for me. I could say it was some secret underground movement or something. But we have nothing at all. All I can tell you is that I would never willingly turn on any of you. You don't have to believe me, and if I were you I would take everything I said with a grain of salt," Badri advised, "but if it came down to my team or the Republic, I would choose my team every time."

"So you're saying you know nothing about this, nothing at all?" Rigil asked.

"I only know as much as you do, Iscom," Badri said. "Despite what some may believe, I don't know every cyborg in the Republic military any more than you know every Mirialan, and I didn't know any of the three in question. I do know that they all died—at the hands of their team or families, no less. And I know none of them had any behavioral problems or indications that they would turn like this. In all fairness and honesty, I meet those criteria as well."

"Sir—Badri—I'm not saying that—" Rigil started.

"Well, you should be, because there's no way to know," Badri countered. "If they turned for some unknown reason, there's nothing that says I won't have the same reason to turn on you. I can't imagine what it might be, other than something against their will, but not every cyborg thinks the same way."

"Badri, I trust you," Rigil said. "I know that you wouldn't turn on us under your own free will. I just—"

"Had doubts?" Badri asked with a raised eyebrow. "I understand completely, and I'm not blaming you, Iscom. I would be suspicious if I were you. But I'm not you, I'm me, and that means I have to deal with the fallbacks of being a cyborg sometimes. I'm lucky to have been assigned a team that doesn't judge me for it, but that opinion seems to be the minority in the Republic."

"Ah, prejudice," Rigil sighed. "Something I get the feeling we both know quite a lot about. For a faction that claims to be diverse and welcoming, there certainly are a lot of bigoted idiots in the Republic," he smiled.

"I, thankfully, have not had enough time to run into too many," Badri said. Rigil laughed.

"Sometimes I think I'm almost jealous of you," he said. "Not having to deal with the preconceived ideas of idiots all your life."

Badri's expression darkened. "You shouldn't be jealous of me. You certainly wouldn't want my problems!" he laughed, abruptly smiling again. He ignored the look Rigil gave him.

"Look, I'll tell you if I have any… issues," Badri said. "If anything goes wrong, I will let the team know. I don't plan on leaving you in the dark about something as important as this."

"Alright," Rigil said hesitantly. "I trust you. Don't make me a fool for that," he warned playfully.

"I won't," Badri laughed as he turned to leave.

As the door closed behind him, Badri sighed. He would have to reread those files, and there was something he was going to have to get.

* * *

In a rare turn of events, Badri was the last to arrive the next morning.

"Well, I'm glad to see you all got the message," he laughed. "It's a fairly simple find and rescue mission. A seven-year-old girl was kidnapped a few nights ago, and we believe that we've located the location she was taken to. Our job is to check out the place, and if she's there, get her out."

"Why was she taken?" Brash asked.

"We don't know," Badri said. "All evidence seems to be that it was just a random kidnapping."

"Great. A pedophile," Brash groaned.

"That's the most likely scenario, yes," Badri reluctantly agreed.

"Well, I needed to shoot someone today anyway," Brash said. "I'll grab another case of ammo and be ready," he said as he walked out to the lockers.

"Rigil, you should take this as well," Badri said, handing him the small disk that had made him late.

"What?" Rigil asked, taking it. He inspected it closer, saying, "Is this what I think it is?"

"Depends how good you are at guessing," Badri said noncommittally.

"Emras, you know—"

"Yes, actually, I do know, so don't bother telling me," Badri said sharply.

"But—"

"I trust you," Badri said as Brash reentered the room. "Now let's get moving."

* * *

The house was abandoned, in one of the lower districts. It wasn't in a particularly pleasant neighborhood, but neither was it completely trashed. The entryway was open, however.

"This doesn't feel right," Badri said cautiously.

Brash snorted. "Really, commander?" A quick glare from Rigil silenced him.

"Rigil," Badri motioned, sending the medic to the back of the line as the four moved into the building.

Inside was the girl, tied to a chair.

And nothing else.

"That is very strange," Yuo said. Badri moved swiftly to untie the girl, freeing her to move.

"Yuo, take her out," he commanded, turning to his team. She nodded, and gestured for the small girl to come to her. She did, but as soon as the girl was out of Badri's reach he heard a click behind his ear.

"I knew they'd send one of you."

"Sergeant!" Rigil was the first to react, reaching for his gun.

"Put down your weapon!" the man yelled.

"Hold your fire!" Badri commanded, staying as still as possible and laying his gun on the floor. Rigil followed suit, but neither of the others did. To the man behind him, Badri said, "I don't know who you are, but if you hurt that girl in any way—"

"Look at you, pretending to care," the man mocked. "No, that was never my intention. In fact, she is free to go now that you are here. Go on," he said, waving his hand in front of Badri. The girl nodded nervously and ran out.

"Step away from him or I'll—" Rigil started.

"Or you'll what?" the man asked. "You'll kill me, as well as your commander? As right you should. This monster deserves to die."

"He's not a monster!" Yuo yelled.

"Oh, but he is," the man said. "They all are. You've just been blinded by his looks. They deceive you into thinking they're human, just like us, and then they show what monsters they really are.

"I was like you, once," the man continued. "I thought they were human too. Even thought they could have friends. Then one of them murdered my wife and daughter, right in front of me. No provocation and no second thoughts."

"Sir—" Badri started.

"Shut up!" the man yelled wildly, hitting Badri across the head with his gun. Yuo screamed, and Brash pulled out his gun, but there was no fire.

"Don't try to fool me again, you monster," the man said to Badri. Then, turning to his crew, said, "I can show you what he really is. How much of him is really human. Shall I?"

And then, without warning, the world went black.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: As this chapter picks up at the same place as the last chapter of TMoF, the same warnings apply: major character death, somewhat graphic descriptions of violence although I don't go into much detail. Also some warnings for body horror as the chapter continues.

This is not a happy fic. It's never going to be a happy fic.

* * *

"Sir! We have a situation!"

"What is it now?" he said, walking over to the monitor flashing red.

"We're losing one. Vital signs are dropping rapidly, and the cybernetics seem to be offline."

He read off of the screen. "Too bad, that one was promising. Not many Republic soldiers have cerebral biocomputers, not to mention full spinal cord implants. Might as well," he shrugged.

"Run the program."

* * *

"I can show you what he really is. How much of him is really human. Shall I?"

There was no time to protest as the man brought a small charge down on Sergeant Emras's head.

The sergeant screamed in pain as he fell to the ground. All three of them made a start, but the man shot his gun between Rigil and Brash, and they stopped.

"That's how much," the man said. "That's your precious commander. Look at him now, with no computers to help him. Oh, how very human!" the man laughed.

And Emras… stood up?

His face was devoid of emotion, he didn't even bother to pick up his gun. He took the three steps needed to cross the small room, and drove his hand through Rigil.

What?

Dune blinked, not believing her eyes. The sergeant could not have just injured Rigil. That could not have happened. The sergeant and Rigil were close friends, right? The sergeant would never hurt one of his friends, that just wouldn't happen.

And then Emras pulled Rigil apart.

Dune fell to the ground, nearly throwing up. She couldn't watch. Emras had pulled Rigil nearly in two with his bare hands. Blood covered the entire room, herself, the man who was still laughing manically, firing off his gun at random.

"You see! You see! What a monster your commander is! Look at him! Just like the others! Killing his friends without a thought!"

Brash was already moving, taking careful aim to shoot Emras in the shoulder. Emras responded by turning on him.

"Sergeant! I order you to—"

And Brash was cut off as well, when Emras punched through his stomach. Brash fell to the ground, coughing.

"Brash!" Dune managed to yell, breaking her stasis. She tried to stand up to move towards him, and found Rigil where she placed her hand. She nearly screamed, before remembering that morning.

"But—"

"I trust you. Now let's get moving."

She had seen Rigil put—whatever it was—in his coat somewhere. Hoping it was still useable, and hoping that it was still inside the coat, rather than Rigil, Dune pulled the remnants of Rigil's coat out from under the blood. She came across something round and metallic that felt about the right size, and pulled it out.

It was a small electromagnetic pulse generator, not even enough power to run her QT. But it would blow the sergeant's eyepatch, and maybe that band. Maybe that would be enough to slow him down, just so she could get to Brash.

Praying to whatever might be listening, she stood up as Emras turned to face her, covered in a layer of blood. She held her gun in one hand, the EMP generator in the other, tightly closed.

"I'm sorry, commander," she said, and pressed the button.

He fell almost immediately to the ground, screaming and collapsing into a heap. Dune bypassed Rigil's corpse, knowing it was beyond hope, to where Brash now lay silent.

"Please," she pleaded again, feeling for a pulse. She let out a sigh of relief. It was weak, but still steady, still there. He would be fine with medical attention. Quickly, she pulled out his QT from his pocket, and cued it to the Senate medcenter.

She turned to the sergeant quickly as his scream fell abruptly silent.

"No, no," she whispered, feeling for his pulse. It was weaker than even Brash's, almost nonexistent. She pulled out her own QT, not having time to find his, and cued it to the medcenter as well.

When she arrived, nurses and doctors were already in a panic trying to handle Brash. One of the doctors looked at her and said, "Another?"

"Please," Dune shouted, "I don't think he'll last much longer!"

The doctor swiftly felt for a pulse, then yelled for assistance. Two nurses came running, and they picked up Emras and ran off. Dune stood up shakily and tried to follow them, but a nurse came and sat her down.

"You shouldn't be following them," she said as Dune struggled.

"I have to—it's my fault—my commander," she argued.

"Slow down and tell me what happened," the nurse said.

"I don't know what happened," Dune said without thinking, and realized with a start that it was true. She didn't know what had happened to the sergeant. What that man had done to make him, do what he did. And EMPs only affected electronics. It shouldn't have done that much damage to Emras—right?

"I—I want to see him," she stuttered.

The nursed sighed. "I really don't think it's wise, but you can watch from the observation room if he is your commanding officer." When Dune nodded, the nurse stood up. "This way."

When they got to the room, it was dark. There was a window to the operating table, but the curtains were drawn over it. Dune reached to open them when the door slammed open.

"You!" a Twi'lek in a doctor's coat called. Dune looked over. "Yes, you. Do you know what happened? How he got damaged?"

"I—I'm not sure," she said, "I detonated an EMP blast, but—"

"You what?!" the doctor yelled. "You should have killed him! You're lucky to have gotten him here alive at all!"

"But—I thought—don't EMP blasts only affect electronics?" she asked.

"Which includes cybernetics!" the doctor shouted.

"But he only—that couldn't have killed him, right?" Dune asked weakly.

"Miss, cybernetics were the only things keeping that man alive."

Dune fell back, grasping for a chair. How? How was that possible? Emras was—well, other than the eyepatch and that band—normal. He wasn't that much machine. He couldn't be. "No," she whispered.

"See for yourself, if you like," the doctor said, waving at the curtains as she ran out of the room.

Dune stood up, crossed to the window, and hesitantly drew back the curtains, unprepared for what she might see.

For one horrifying moment, Dune thought she was looking at Rigil's corpse again. Her brain clicked back as it registered the brown skin rather than green, and barely recognized… him as her sergeant, lying face down on the table. His head had been shaved and the band removed to pull back the skin covering his skull, a large portion of which had also been removed. Underneath where there should have been bone was the dull half-shine of broken biocomputers, implanted into his brain. Tracing down his back was another thin cut, following his spine all the way down his naked back. The cut had been peeled apart to show the burnt wires tied to a mechanical spine. His left side was… "gone" was the only word Dune could think of. His arm and leg had been removed completely, and large portions of his side had been taken off. A section of his ribcage was missing as well, revealing patched organs and a half-mechanical heart.

The Twi'lek doctor had run in and was now shouting at the other doctors in the room. There was a scramble of motion as they ran off. Dune watched as one lowered the Kolto tank in the room and the doctors lifted Emras into it. The tank was left open as the Twi'lek doctor continued to do something to him.

"Are you alright?" the nurse asked. Dune hadn't noticed as she slipped forward, nearly falling on to the window.

"Fine," she whispered, clutching onto the frame. The nurse ran over and pulled her into a chair. "I'm fine," Dune insisted.

"You should sit down," she said. "You've had a shock; I'm sure it's been a long day."

Dune rested her head in her hand, and pulled it back to her fingers wet. When had she started crying? She looked back up in time to see the nurse draw the curtains.

"You need to rest. There are rooms here for non-patients. Can you stand?" the nurse asked.

"Y-yes," Dune said shakily. She managed to stand up, her head beginning to spin as her feet touched the ground. The nurse noticed her tilting, and rushed over to hold her upright.

"Take it easy. That's it, nice and slow," she said as Dune took a cautious step, her head continuing to spin. "There's no rush."

Dune took another step, trying to place her foot down carefully. The nurse took most of her weight, nearly carrying her out of the room.

Even minutes later, she couldn't remember any of the walk to the bed. She could only remember the way it felt as she crashed onto the sheets, asleep before she had even closed her eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

Dune woke up slowly, naturally fading out of sleep. She wished she felt more uncertain about the previous day's events, but it was impossible to forget. Everything was much too real to be a dream. She sat up slowly, not wanting this nightmare of a reality to be real, but the blood on her hands was impossible to deny. The dried blood covered not only her hands, but her clothes and shoes as well, her arms splashed with patches, her pants no longer had any white left. There was probably even blood on her face, but she couldn't see without a mirror.

"There's a sink in the bathroom."

Dune looked up. The Twi'lek doctor from last night was leaning against the doorframe, smiling at her. Dune must have looked confused, because she continued, "I've been working for the military for my entire career. Soldiers tend to react in one of several ways, always a little different, but similar enough," she said. "That door," she pointed.

Dune nodded thankfully. Standing up was a challenge, but one she was able to defeat with a little bit of effort. The door slid open as she approached, and sure enough, there was a small bathroom inside.

The sink was small, and the water didn't run very hot, but it was enough to get her started. Dune scrubbed away at her hands, trying to remove as much of the blood as she could. It flaked off as she scrubbed, and fell in watery clumps on the bottom of the basin. She rubbed her hands until they were almost raw; until she was no longer sure if it was her rubbing or the blood that was making her hands pink.

Dune looked up at herself in the mirror. Her eyes had dark shadows, and she had bloody fingerprints under her eyes where she had touched her face last night. How had she missed that? They came off easier than the blood on her hands, but the cold water was a shock to her face. She shook her head, staring at her reflection in the mirror, and walked back to the main room.

The doctor had left, and Dune was alone with her thoughts. Her guilt pounded in her chest, making it hard to take a deep breath without choking. This was all my fault, was the only thought that seemed to make any sense in her head.

"I'm afraid I didn't introduce myself properly last night," the same doctor apologized, walking back in with a tray. Dune looked up, startled by the sudden noise. "I'm Doctor Riaah Le'eth," the doctor said.

"Private Dune Yuo," Dune responded.

"And you're not a Jedi, right?" Doctor Le'eth asked, setting the tray down on the end table next to Dune.

"No, why?" Dune asked glumly.

"You have something powerful on your side, that's for sure," Le'eth sighed, sitting down on the stool across from the bed.

"Then they're—how are they?" Dune asked quickly.

"They—? Oh, the other trooper sent in before you. Brosh?"

"Brash," Dune corrected.

"That was it," she said. "He's fine. His life was only really threatened by blood loss, and that was easy enough to take care of. We don't know how long he will be unconscious, or how to best fix his internal injuries, but his life is no longer in danger." Dune sighed in relief as the doctor continued. "Badri…" Le'eth seemed to deflate, her shoulders slouching from her previous perfect posture. "We finally got him stable early this morning. He's alive, but in bad condition. Most of the cybernetics will have to be completely replaced, possibly even reinstalled, and there is no real way to find out if there will be any lasting brain damage until he's ready to be woken up."

"You know him," Dune asked, more a statement than a question.

"You could say that," Le'eth answered. "I was one of his original doctors."

"Original?" Dune asked.

"I was the doctor in charge of the installation of his cybernetics," Le'eth explained.

"Oh," Dune said, shocked. "I didn't realize that he—that you were, uh," she gave up on words.

Le'eth's gaze sharpened as she said, "Cyborgs aren't born, you know. Badri himself has only had cybernetics for about a year now. He's barely had enough time to get used to them himself, much less get used to the reactions of other people. Cyborgs that are more than 30 percent inorganic tend to face worse prejudice than cyborgs with less than 30 percent."

"The sergeant?" Dune asked nervously, not sure if she really wanted to hear the answer.

"45 percent," Le'eth said simply.

"But that's—he's almost half—" Dune stuttered. She finished the thought in the privacy of her head. He's almost half machine! "But he never said anything!" she exclaimed.

"Of course he didn't," Le'eth said. "It's not exactly something that comes up naturally in conversation."

"But he could have said something," Dune insisted.

"He didn't want you to think of him as a droid," Le'eth said as if it were the most obvious thing in the galaxy.

"But I—" Dune started.

Le'eth interrupted, "But he's almost half?" she quoted, giving Dune a questioning glance. "Don't try to lie to me about how that sentence ended. I can see it written all over your face."

Dune flushed, embarrassed. She had thought of herself as fairly open-minded, not susceptible to prejudice. Yet here she was, caught in the act.

"Look, it's a common reaction," Le'eth said soothingly. "That's why he didn't mention it. Badri's not exactly comfortable with his cybernetics himself, but after everything that happened…" she trailed off, leaving Dune feeling equally guilty and confused.

"Speaking of which," the doctor said, "What did happen? The injuries Brash and… the other member of your squad had were pretty unusual. No blaster wounds at all."

"It was the sergeant," Dune whispered.

"What?" Le'eth asked.

"It was sergeant Emras that attacked them," she repeated.

"Explain," Le'eth deadpanned.

"I don't really know what happened," Dune explained.

"Start at the beginning, then. What was your assignment?" she asked.

"It was a simple rescue," Dune started. "There was a little girl who had been kidnapped, and we were to check out where she had been tracked to. But when we got there, it was weird," she said, "the girl was the only one there. And then her kidnapper showed up. He said that she could go; that she had only been bait to lure us there. To lure the sergeant there?" she asked herself. "Maybe that was it, or maybe he just didn't care who exactly. The man kept raving about cyborgs," she explained, "he said they had killed his family or something. He was crazy, but he knew what he was doing. He had… something that he hit the sergeant with, and the sergeant went down."

Dune stopped to breathe, trying to collect her thoughts. None of what happened next had made any sense. "Then he, got up, I guess," she said. "And he—he attacked Rigil."

"The other member of your team?" the doctor asked. When Dune nodded, Le'eth waved her hand for the solider to continue.

"I don't know why he ever would," Dune said, the tears finally starting. "Emras and Rigil were friends. We were all friends, I thought. But then he did something like this, like he was some sort of—of mindless animal!" Dune dissolved into tears.

"Shh," Le'eth said, sitting down next to her. "It's alright. It will be fine. We'll figure out what happened, okay?"

Dune nodded, wiping her eyes. She hated feeling like such a child. "He went after Brash next, and then the kidnapper," she said shakily, her voice detached. "I got out the EMP blast, and blew it when he turned on me. Then I sent Brash here, and I followed with Emras." She tried her hardest not to think about the events as she recounted them. Those last desperate seconds as she fought her commander with no explanation, the panic as she came to the hospital unprepared for what she would learn.

"Thank you," the doctor said. "I think that's enough." She stood up. "Is there anything else you would like?" When Dune shook her head, she continued, "Then just make sure to eat. You need to keep up your strength as well. We have all the patients we can handle at the moment," she said with a small smirk, and left the room once again.

* * *

"Dr. Le'eth!"

It was the director of the hospital, and quite honestly, the last person Riaah wanted to see right now. She had just gotten Badri stable less than four hours ago, and she felt like she was going to collapse. Riaah thought she knew what this was about, and now was most definitely not the time to deal with it, but it didn't look like she had a choice.

"Look, I know this is a bad time," he said, and Riaah didn't even bother to hide her eyeroll, "but you really need to take on a nursing student. You're the most experienced cyberneticist in the building and several of these students have an interest in your area." He gestured to six wide-eyed students standing behind him.

"I—Shit. SHIT!"

Riaah's beeper was going crazy, which meant only one thing.

Badri was no longer stable.

The director was protesting about something or other, probably her swearing, but Riaah was long past caring. "If any of you want to intern with me, follow now and we'll see if you have what it takes!" she shouted, already turning. She ran back to the room. She didn't check to see if any had taken her hasty offer until she was outside the door.

She appeared to have a small entourage following her down the hall, three—no, four—students trailing behind her. At least they could keep up. We'll see if any of them last, she thought, pushing open the door to his room. Only two made it in after her, the other students presumably bailing before the door swung shut.

"Trial by fire, right?" Riaah announced to the general room. The nurse on duty spared her half a confused glance while running around to the monitors. With a practiced ease, Riaah pulled two gloves out of the box and threw the remainder at one of the students. "Put them on," she said, snapping on her own. "You'll need them."

"His heartrate is erratic," the nurse reported to Riaah. "I'm not sure what's wrong."

"It's this idiotic contraption," Riaah said, starting before the nurse had finished. She gestured at the exposed wires which led back to the artificial heart at one end, and a small power supply at the other. "Not getting enough power. Get me—" she started, turning to a student. She realized that he wouldn't know where things were, and secondly that he was the only one left, and spun around to the nurse on duty. "Get me a—just get me the next largest power supply you can find," she barked. "And you," she said, turning to the student, "help me keep him steady."

Both responded quickly, the nurse running out of the room while the student took the opposite side of the bed from Riaah. He stood, awaiting instructions.

"If he starts—" Riaah began, but she was quickly interrupted with exactly what she had been trying to explain. Badri began to have convulsions, not nearly as bad as she had feared, but bad enough. "This, damn, hold him down!" Riaah shouted. The student nodded, expertly using one arm to hold his chest and the other to steady his head. It was over in a span of seconds, giving them both a moment to breathe. It also gave Riaah a clear look at the boy who had stayed. His hair looked as if it were trying to escape from under the knit cap he wore, and his face was set in a clear resolve. Human, young, neither of which were a surprise. He was probably no more than five years younger than Riaah herself, but he followed orders well enough, and there was no fear in his brown eyes.

The nurse returned, carrying a larger power source. Riaah took it as soon as it was in reach. "Both of you, make sure he stays still. And ignore the beeping." It was the only advice she could give. At the very least, this was the most intense harrowing she could have given to the student. It took nerves of steel to intentionally flatline a patient and keep you head.

Sure enough, the shrill tone started as soon as Riaah disconnected the wires from the old power supply. The noise pounded in the back of her head, reminding her of her fear. She would not let it happen today. She lined up the negative wire first, resisting the urge to connect it until the positive wire was lined up likewise. She slammed the clip on both wires simultaneously, her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. Three more beats and the beeping stopped, returning to the friendly ping indicating a steady heartbeat.

Riaah allowed herself one sigh of relief. The nurse was clearly rattled; she would have to end her shift early, but Riaah didn't blame her. The student, on the other hand, was remarkably calm. He had gone pale, and his forehead was covered with sweat, but his hands didn't shake and his eyes were focused.

"What's your name?" Riaah asked him curtly. Her frayed nerves were repairing themselves quickly with every friendly ping, but she had run out of pleasantries yesterday.

"Darren Voach," the student said calmly. He blinked sweat out of his eyes, adding to the list of good signs Riaah had noticed: He remembered he was wearing gloves and didn't reach for his face.

"Well, Darren, congratulations," she said, tossing her own gloves in the trash. Riaah offered him her hand. "You just landed yourself an internship."


	4. Chapter 4

AN: So in attempting to figure out where I was to continue posting, I realized that I had somehow double-posted chapter 5 and skipped over chapter four. Whoops! So here is the *actual* chapter four, followed by chapters 5 and 6.

* * *

Dune had found her way back to the observation room, finally. The nurses had tried to forestall her attempts to find her way back to her commanding officer's room, but after a week she had managed to worm out of their grasp. It probably helped that most of them, including Doctor Le'eth, were currently operating on said commander as she watched.

"Um, miss?"

Dune turned around to see a nurse, probably not much older than her. "I'm not sure you're allowed to be here," he continued.

"I have a question for Dr. Le'eth," she said calmly, turning back to the window to the operating room. It was true, technically.

"I'll tell her when she's finished," the nurse said. "If you wouldn't mind waiting somewhere else…?"

"I'm not leaving," Dune said firmly.

"Right," said the nurse.

Dune wasn't sure if he left or simply didn't say anything else, but she watched in silence as the doctors continued their work in the next room.

It took nearly another hour for the doctors to finish, during which time the nurse rejoined them in the operating room. He said something to Dr. Le'eth, Dune couldn't hear what, but the doctor gave her a swift glance before returning to her work.

The sergeant was still in pieces on the operating table. Wires looped around the room, attaching him to boxes and monitors. It forced the doctors to step carefully, ducking under rather than pulling the wires taut above their heads. Emras was still missing two limbs completely, his left arm and leg, and most of the wires attached to the gaping hole that was the left side of his torso. He was lying on his back, head propped up with some contraption Dune didn't recognize, and Le'eth was working on his exposed spine. It seemed to be entirely metal, and the doctor was inspecting wires that attached to it. After watching a few dozen such inspections, Dune realized that some of the wires weren't metal at all, but flesh nerves. She shivered at the thought.

When the doctors left, the lines on the monitors seemed to be stable, and Dune couldn't see the difference. She still didn't understand what was going on, or what he was. Dr. Le'eth came around the hallway, entering the observation room with Dune.

"What do you want?" Le'eth asked. She sounded angry, but she looked tired.

"Can I see his file?" Dune asked timidly. It was certainly against procedure to request a superior officer's medical log, but she wanted to see them. She wanted to know how much of him was really human.

"I think so," Le'eth said with a curious glance. "I can get them now, if you want. As long as they come right back to me once you're finished." Dune nodded, and Le'eth walked into the next room. It only took a few minutes, and when Le'eth came back she was carrying two datapads.

"Why do you have two?" Dune asked.

"This one," Le'eth said, handing her the first datapad, "is the one you asked for. And this is the one you wanted," she said, handing her the second. "I'll be back in my office. Ring when you're done with them. I'll make sure no one disturbs you," she said with a smile, closing the door as she left.

Dune opened the first datapad, and the screen lit up.

BADRI EMRAS – MEDICAL LOG

Dune looked around the files, but there was nothing of note. In fact, there were only two files currently on the log, one from a mission they had been on two months ago, admittedly with details that Emras and Rigil had kept from her and Brash, and a stub of a file that simply read: CHECK UP AND POWER SOURCE CHANGE: SUCCESS. She tried to scroll further back, but the file seemed to stop about a year ago.

 _I guess Le'eth knew that,_ Dune thought, switching the files. A different name showed on the screen this time.

BADRI RAVJANDAY – MEDICAL LOG

 _He changed his name,_ Dune wondered, tracing the letters with her fingers. She scrolled all the way to the beginning this time and read forward. It was insignificant stuff, really. A minor injury here, a more major injury there. There was nothing really significant until near the end of the data. It was everything, all at once, a list of injuries that just didn't seem to end.

She wasn't sure what she had been expecting to see, really. It just came as a shock to see the lines of text scrolling down. Her eyes drifted over as she tried to scroll to the end, yet even that wasn't everything. There was one last entry afterwards, dated around when the Emras file started.

INJURY: Heart Failure

Those three words explained everything and nothing all at once. She could barely process it. Emras had died, basically. Dune read the list that followed, and everything seemed much clearer. His heart had been replaced with an artificial one. When she had set off the EMP, she had killed him. Again.

She scrolled aimlessly through the rest of the file. The series of holovids caught her eye. It looked like months' worth of video, and it was only labeled with dates, times, and a series of names. Le'eth's name caught her eye in several places, and she inferred that the names were all doctors. Almost at random, she picked one signed by Dr. Le'eth and opened it.

She had to turn off the video almost as soon as she had turned it on. The images were… Dune was a soldier, yes. She had seen some gruesome things, particularly in the last few days. But even the brief glance was too much for her.

If anything, Badri was worse than when she had seen him in the operating room the first time. It looked as if even less of him was there, if that was even possible. And the blood… it reminded her of Rigil. Of Rigil's corpse.

She sat there, staring at the blank wall, trying to absorb her thoughts. It wasn't working, so she headed back to the door. As it opened, Dr. Le'eth turned around from her work.

"Are you done?" the doctor asked, standing up.

"Yeah," Dune said quietly. She handed back the datapads. "I see why you gave me both."

Le'eth nodded. "I guessed that he hadn't told many people about his name change. Did you look at any of the holovids?" she asked quietly.

"Yes. Kind of," Dune admitted. "I couldn't for long."

Le'eth sighed. "He watched them, you know. Badri," she clarified. "That was one of the first things he asked for once he was awake. He watched every operation we did."

"How?" Dune asked incredulously. "I could barely stand watching it, and he's—well—they're holovids of him!"

"That's just the kind of person he is," Le'eth said. "He said he needed to know who he was, and for that he needed to understand what we had done to his body. After all, we couldn't have gotten his consent before we had lost him. We did what we had to do to keep them alive, and then to restore their basic functioning, but we never gave them a choice. In the end, I think that might have been the problem."

"Them?" Dune asked.

Le'eth shifted uncomfortably. "Badri... wasn't the only one we operated on. But I'm rambling. My point is that Badri feels a lot of guilt, just for surviving. I can't imagine what he will be like when he wakes up. I don't even know if he'll be the same person," she admitted. "When… if he wakes up," she modified quietly, "you'll have to be understanding of that."

"I…" Dune hadn't missed the switch in her words, and it worried her. "Is he going to survive?"

"I don't know," Le'eth sighed. "I really don't."

* * *

"What the hell do you mean?!"

"I'm sorry, but the shipment won't arrive for another two weeks at the earliest. The only factory on-planet was blown up last week, and our stores were attacked when the incidents started happening. With all the anti-cyborg sentiment floating around, it was bound to blow up sooner or later."

Doctor Riaah Le'eth fought her every urge to strangle the incompetent man in front of her. "And what part of 'I need the power source to make his heart run' do you not understand?" she all but growled.

"I understand all of it clearly, but there's nothing I can do. I can't make ships move faster just because someone wants them to."

Riaah kept her hands at her sides. It took every ounce of strength that wasn't being used to hold herself upright. "Since you obviously can't help, get out and let me do my job," she snarled. The man gave her a brief nod, and left as if the air around him wasn't frozen solid.

Unclenching her fists, Riaah went back to the monitors. His life signs were still stable, but he was nowhere near fixed. Working with this few supplies was like working with her hands tied behind her back. There were no proper batteries, she had to make the biocomputers from scratch and by hand, seeing as she was apparently the only proper cybernetic technician in the building, there wasn't even synthskin in the right skin tone! She was lucky to have managed to find a heart pump of the right make before they had lost him completely! He was living off of a power source that had to be outside his body that was jury-rigged to the pump with spare wires! The lack of proper equipment was appalling.

She sighed. At least it had worked out so far. He was stable. He was alive. She hadn't failed him yet. That was what she had to keep telling herself.

 _What the hell happened to you, Badri?_

"Imperials?"

"Well, it's the only solution I can come up with," Riaah responded, rubbing the base of her lekku aggravatedly. "You've run the same analysis of the base code, haven't you, Oro?"

"I have, and I came to the same conclusion," he said. Oro was sometimes painfully by-the-book, but that only lent credence to Riaah's theory. As both a known conservative and a CorSec doctor, rather than SpecForce or Military, there was no way to discount his conclusions as the simple backing up of a friend. Not that Riaah had many friends.

"What evidence do we have?" Commander Rans asked. Riaah disliked having the commander of the military in on a medical conference call, but she saw the use of it in this instance, particularly as cases were confined to SpecForce and CorSec for the time being. CorSec had one of their higher-ups in on the call as well, but their commander was handling an _urgent case,_ what Riaah inferred to be a cyborg under suspicion among his advisors. At this rate, cyborgs were going to be ejected from the force altogether.

"Doctor Le'eth and I have run independent tests on the code we were able to salvage from our patients," Oro explained. "The code comparison analysis revealed a hidden cypher, activated by a line of code we're still trying to decipher, but it appears to be a reference to some external command. Most likely, some sort of encoded radio signal on a low enough frequency to be mistaken for background chatter by military scanners." Riaah nodded absentmindedly, making a mental note to go over the civilian broadcast frequencies again—she couldn't quite remember the range. "When we cross-checked each other's patients, we came up with exactly the same line in each patient, barring three."

"Coruscant Four, Corellia Nine, and Corellia Twenty-Three," Soleli, the CorSec agent, proposed for the doctors to confirm.

"And Coruscant Fourteen," Riaah added, remembering her newest patient, another who came in after an EMP blast by teammates took him down. She stood up to pace, trying desperately not to feel drowsy.

"There have been fourteen on Coruscant?" Willamson asked in some surprise. As a civilian doctor, he wasn't privy to most military cases, but even Riaah admitted that his knowledge of cybernetics was the best in the galaxy, and his expertise gave him security clearance for this case.

"Up to twenty-six on Corellia," Soleli added. She sighed, "At this rate, we'll be out of cyborg officers within the week, enlistees the week after that."

"Hopefully it won't come to that," Rans interjected. "I want a way to stop this. Understood?"

There was a chorus of affirmative a from the half-dozen doctors on the holocall. Riaah caught the eye of Oro and gave him a pointed nod; this conversation would continue privately after the Commander released them.

"Very good," Rans said. "I expect an update within twelve hours. Dismissed."

The Supreme Commander of the Republic disconnected his holo promptly, leaving a set of awkward doctors and one CorSec agent staring at each other.

"Shit," one of the doctors swore. Riaah couldn't pick out the voice, but it could have been hers just as well.

"Agreed," Soleli said. "Each to our tasks, then. I wish you luck. I don't want to put down any more of my own officers."

"You and me both," Riaah muttered as she disconnected her holo from the conference channel. Oro must have done the same, as the private request came before she had a chance to type it in herself.

"Time to get to work," she greeted grimly, pulling up her dataset. It was going to be another long night.


	5. Chapter 5

AN: And chapter 5 again. Warning for suicidal thoughts.

* * *

"Hey, Badri, are you still with us? Can you understand me?"

 _That voice… Familiar._

"Riaah…" he murmured. "If this is Dantooine I'm going to be seriously pissed."

"Sergeant!" called another familiar voice. _Yuo._

Riaah laughed. "Good to see you too, sweetheart. Well, metaphorically in your sense. Don't bother with vision; it's not hooked up currently. I can't tell you how good it is to hear your voice," she sighed, and continued. "No, don't worry; I got transferred to Coruscant a month ago, and it was damn lucky for you that I was. If I wasn't here when you were brought in, you would probably be dead now. Not to mention the past week and a half," she added.

"It's been a week and a half?" Badri asked, trying to turn on his vision processing anyway, without success. "What hap—"

The memories came rushing back at a painful speed, only this time he could understand what was being said. What his friends screamed as he turned on them without explanation and what they yelled as he cut them down without mercy.

 _"I'm sorry, commander."_

The stupidest, most naïve, most trusting phrase. And the one he was least deserving of.

"Why the hell didn't you kill me?" he asked bitterly. He tried to tilt his head downwards, but met more resistance than he was expecting.

"Um!" Riaah exclaimed nervously. "Don't! Move," she commanded. "Please."

Badri stopped moving and shifted his head back to the same position. "Riaah," he asked warningly, "am I open right now?"

"Well, not exactly," she said hesitantly.

"Riaah?" he prompted, falsely sweet.

"Let it suffice to say that it's probably better that you don't have vision right now," she said.

"And you let Private Yuo see—" he started angrily.

"She's seen you a lot more open than this!" Riaah yelled back. "When she brought you in, you were dead! Again! You know, I do make appointments for live patients," she joked. "You don't have to be dead to get on my schedule."

"You still haven't answered my question," Badri pointed out.

"Alright, if you're desperate to know," Riaah gave in. "You do have your side, arm, and leg on. Your head is open, but your back is mostly closed. Here I figured that the capital of the Republic would be better stocked, but they don't even have the right size power source for your pump. I had to do what I could with what I had."

"So what you're saying is that if I pull too hard on the wires that I assume are coming out of my back, I flatline," Badri deadpanned.

"Pretty much, yes," Riaah admitted. "So please try not to fidget."

"You don't have to worry too much about that," he muttered, "I can't feel a thing."

"That's because your pain inhibitor is tuned to the maximum," Riaah explained. "It's not safe to have you open on your normal settings."

"I'm sure," he said bitterly. "It's probably not safe to keep me alive at all."

"Commander, I—I know that wasn't you!" Yuo burst out suddenly, half pleading. _She must have been holding it back,_ Badri thought, but it was difficult to tell without sight. "It couldn't have been! Something went wrong, or—or—"

"Private, I think you should wait outside, okay?" Riaah said gently. Yuo was silent for a moment before leaving.

"Badri," Riaah said quietly after the door closed.

"You know what happened. Don't pretend for my sake," he spat.

"Look, I know one thing, and that girl is right," Riaah insisted. "No matter how much of what she said is true—"

"All of it," Badri interrupted. "If anything, she probably made me sound better than I am."

"Badri—"

"Don't bother!" he said angrily. "I don't deserve any of this; I don't deserve to be alive. I killed two of the only friends I have left—"

"Brash is still alive."

Badri nearly choked. "W-what?" he sputtered.

"Chertan Brash is alive," Riaah said simply. "He's comatose, but there's no reason to attempt to wake him up until we are done operating on him. Right now we're just waiting for the cloned cells to hopefully repair his stomach, and then he will be perfectly fine. If the cloning works he won't even need cybernetics."

Badri sat in stunned silence, trying to consolidate his thoughts. _Brash is alive._ Still alive. Even after what he did to him…

"Is there a reason you woke me up?" Badri asked, changing the subject abruptly. Riaah saw through his weak attempt, but accepted his silent plea.

"We have to run some more tests to determine what happened," she said, businesslike. "Some of my… colleagues," she put as much contempt as she could in the one word, "still believe that you were acting under your own consciousness, but most people are sane enough to realize that wasn't the case. It wasn't, was it?" she asked nervously.

"I don't think so," Badri answered quietly.

"Badri," Riaah warned. "You know that's not a real answer."

"I don't know what is," he said.

"A simple 'no' would suffice in this case," was her sarcastic reply.

"But how do I know?" Badri asked, anguished. "I saw myself kill them. I was conscious as I tore Rigil's body apart. I watched every second go by in my head. I couldn't stop myself."

"And that is all the answer I need," she said. " _'I couldn't stop myself'_ sounds like it was out of your conscious control, wouldn't you say?"

Badri didn't answer.

"Alright, on to the testing," Riaah sighed, hooking a wire to Badri's flesh wrist. "I have to take some readings, make sure that your core movement systems are working. It's a lot safer to check the base systems before trying to reconnect the peripheral ones."

"Fair enough," Badri conceded, trying to stay as steady as he could manage.

"Please try to close your right hand," Riaah instructed.

"Is this right?" Badri asked. He couldn't see if his hand had moved, and he couldn't feel if it had shifted position either. It was rather unnerving.

"That looks fine," Riaah said. "Your left hand, now? Yes, it is there. Good. Now try to flex both of your hands at once. Huh, the synchronization seems to be a little off," she muttered, "but nothing to worry about." Badri was sure she was adjusting something in his arm. Even if he couldn't see it, he could hear the sounds of metal on metal. "Try again?" she asked. He did.

"Much better," Riaah said, pleased.

The next hour went in much the same way. Small movements, one or two at a time. A few adjustments here and there to fix small issues. Badri's mind was left free to wander, and he kept replaying the same scene in his head. Maybe if he saw it enough, it would start to make sense. Or maybe it would just disappear. Or maybe if he shifted just enough to knock the wires loose…

"That's it," Riaah said suddenly, startling Badri out of his thoughts. "I'll put you out now." Badri gave the smallest amount of a nod, and Riaah walked off leaving him to his thoughts once more. Had he just considered…?

"One last question," she said when she came back. "The EMP generator, you gave that to them, didn't you?"

Badri nearly laughed. "Of course I did."

"I figured," Riaah said, as Badri felt the injector break the skin on his right arm. "It was your style."

He was out within moments.

* * *

Riaah had lost count of how many hours of extended holocalls she and Oro had logged over the past few days, but it was in the dozens. The more she went over the code, the harder it seemed to crack. Oro was running similar calculations on his end, but neither of them trusted computers to this task. Not when their code had been so obviously sliced.

"By the force, Le'eth, you have got to get some sleep." Oro sounded somewhat amazed, probably surprised that she was still able to get anything done, but Riaah was used to pulling painful all-nighters back to back. Emergency operations did not leave much time for sleep.

"Can't" Riaah said tersely. She apparently looked worse than she felt, but she was mostly numb from the stims and caf at this point. "I have work to do. I have to get this finished because no one else in the damn complex knows cybernetics well enough to see that something is wrong!" She slammed her hand down on the table. "Sorry. Damn, I wish Willamson wasn't civilian."

There was a few minutes of blessed silence, allowing Riaah to make some progress on the manual cipher.

"What was their name?" Oro asked.

"What?" Riaah said, surprised.

"I know that look. You lost a patient recently." It wasn't truly a question, but Oro didn't leave any room for defensiveness. That didn't stop Riaah from trying.

"I lose a lot of patients. Comes with this line of work," Riaah evaded.

"What was their name?" Oro insisted.

"Soen Carthers," Riaah admitted, biting off the words. "Same incident as Ba-Coruscant Four." Riaah managed to cut herself off before using Badri's name-technically, neither of them were supposed to refer to the cyborgs involved by name. Some military bullshit, but Riaah wasn't terribly interested in rehashing that portion of her past, so it was a passable excuse.

"I see," said Oro. "I know it's rough."

Riaah gave a snort. "It was harder on him than me. Both of them. That whole incident was a mess."

"From what I see, you pulled a miracle to keep Four alive," Oro said, looking briefly over the relevant file.

"Well yes," Riaah dismissed. "But at what cost?"

"There's always a cost," Oro said. "Always. Sometimes we make the wrong call, and that's something we have to live with."

"I'm not a child," Riaah retorted, turning back to the cipher. "I may be young, but I'm not a fool." She ignored Oro's laughter.

"Find anything yet?" he asked.

"No," Riaah replied.

"Get some sleep, then," Oro said. "You're no good to anyone burnt out." And with that, he shut the connection.

Riaah sighed and ignored his advice. There was no way she could sleep, not now. Not for a long time.


	6. Chapter 6

AN: Chapter 6, finally.

* * *

Badri woke up quickly as the drugs left his system. The first thing he was able to process was the argument directly to his left.

"Sergeant!"

"Sir, he isn't ready to be moved, much less testify!"

"That is not my concern, Doctor."

"It damn well should be! And you, get out!"

"Doctor, I would prefer if—"

"Damn what you prefer! He is my patient until I see it fit to release him!"

"Badri!" Riaah yelled as he turned on his vision, thankfully now working, and opening his other eye as a visual cue that he was aware of what was going on. "I tried to stop him, but—"

"What your… doctor does not understand," the man interrupted, placing a careful emphasis on "doctor," "is that you are still a member of the Republic military."

It took Badri a moment to realize that the world was in grey tones. Riaah must not be finished, he thought as the argument seemed to pick up where it had left off.

"What this—this fool doesn't understand is that I am a military doctor! I have jurisdiction over my patients!" Riaah barked back.

The other man was wearing a Republic uniform. Badri couldn't see the pips, but he was obviously a high rank. Not a good sign.

"Not absolute jurisdiction," he said, "and this case has been looked at by command. Sergeant Emras, you are scheduled to appear for trial in three days."

"You can't do that!" Riaah shouted. "Badri was obviously not in control—"

"That has not been proven," the man said. "This trial will determine what occurred and why."

"This is—" Riaah started.

"I'm being court-martialed," Badri asked, cutting Riaah's extended argument short.

"Yes," the man said.

"But—" Riaah tried again.

"Good," Badri said. Riaah gave him a look he couldn't quite read.

"I will expect you at oh-eight-hundred hours the day of the trial," the man said, and turned to leave. The room was silent as he walked out the door, and closed it behind him.

"I can't believe that idiot!" Riaah yelled once he was out. "He just barged in here, demanding to see you awake!" When Badri didn't join in her rant, she added, "You can't seriously be planning to go."

"Why not?" he asked bitterly. "I deserve it. Don't even try," he said, forestalling any argument from the doctor. "You have no right to keep me. I have no right to keep from going. I'm a danger to the people around me, and don't try to deny it. What free will do I have if I can't even keep from killing a friend?" he asked harshly. "I don't know why they're even bothering to give me a trial. I have no right to be treated any different than a droid."

"You are not a droid!" Riaah finally interrupted. "I don't know what ridiculous ideas have gotten into you head, but you are still human! Yes, you may be partially machine, but that doesn't change the fact that you were—and are—originally human! So please, stop being so hard on yourself," she pleaded. "If anyone is to blame, it's me. I've been going over the autopsies for the other officers. I haven't found anything conclusive yet," she admitted, "but there is much too much in common for it to be coincidence. They all had completely different systems, but nearly 20% of the code is the same. That is too much to be basic systems. There is something else here, I'm sure of it," she insisted.

"Don't bother," he cut her off. "Even if you did find a link, my systems were wiped in the pulse blast. I know full well how it works. There's nothing you can do to prove it."

"We will clear you of this, I promise you," Riaah said firmly. Badri didn't meet her gaze.

"You can't clear what I've already done," he said quietly.

Riaah sighed. "I have a lot of work to do if you're going to be able to be transported in three days," she said. "That means lights out again."

Badri didn't resist, didn't say anything, and welcomed the release as the drugs reentered his system.

* * *

"Darren. Report."

The nursing student was turning out to be surprisingly useful. He hadn't run off yet, another surprise, seeing as he had worked with Riaah for almost three weeks now. If she remembered correctly, the current record for her primary nurse was four weeks. The shortest was two hours.

"No change," he replied. "Still stable. He seems ready for the transplant, as far as I can tell."

"Excellent," Riaah said. It was a relief to have one patient who wasn't causing her trouble constantly.

She had spent the past three days going from one Cyborg patient to the next, and it was starting to take its toll. Thankfully, there had been no new cases today, so Riaah had a chance to look over her one current non-Cyborg patient, and hopefully keep him that way.

"The cloning process is proceeding on schedule," Darren said, continuing his update. "Private Brash should be ready for the transplant in three to four days."

"And he hadn't woken up?"

"No," Darren said. He skimmed the file briefly to check. "He could regain consciousness at any time, theoretically…"

"But he's still comatose," Riaah finished. "Shock, probably."

"Shock?"

Riaah turned to look at Darren, putting her own files down. "Darren, have you worked in a trauma center before?"

"Worked, no," he replied. "Been around, yes. My father and brother run a clinic that often takes emergencies. I've seen people die of shock, but not become comatose."

"It happens sometimes, but the shock has to be enormous and the patient has to be strong, or they wouldn't make it." Riaah absentmindedly twirled her stylus. "I know Badri reasonably well, and the Private was on his team. Having his commanding officer—thinking that Badri turned on them would be damn near impossible for me to understand too." She sighed and slipped the stylus back into the datapad.

"What's the likelihood that he'll recover?" Darren asked.

"Fairly good," Riaah said. "Especially if he makes a substantial physical recovery, it should be easier to pull him back. Once he's done with surgery, we can try the typical drug regimen, see if it brings him back."

"And if it doesn't?"

Riaah shrugged. "Then we wait. Or try again. Or try something different. There are only so many options, and there are only two end results: Either the private wakes up, or he doesn't. That's a lot of what this business is about. You try everything you can, and it either works, or it doesn't."

Darren gave a small laugh. It irked Riaah, which she was about to make clear when he said, "That's probably the clearest, most accurate way I've heard the medical profession described, and I've been around it my whole life."

"Well," Riaah said. She wasn't often at a loss for words, but she didn't often get compliments that weren't given grudgingly. "We should probably check on the private before I make any final plans for his transplant."

Stars, she really hoped they had at least one easy patient this month.


	7. Chapter 7

AN: Bit of a longer chapter this time, but that's because my original breaks changed when I updated the fic. The next chapter is likely to be a bit shorter than usual to compensate.

Warnings: Mention of a past suicide in this chapter, suicidal thoughts.

* * *

"Rise and shine, sweetheart. It's your big day."

The first thing Badri remembered when he woke up was going to sleep. It was rather disconcerting.

"Riaah, how long was I out?" he muttered, trying hard to ignore the stabbing, aching, and pretty much every other kind of pain coming from his head. He tried to focus on any other part of his body, but the pain was barely better in his arm, his leg, anywhere in his left side…

"Five days," Riaah said from somewhere above his head.

"But that's—" Badri started.

"They moved the court-martial back to today, at my request, so I could at least get the power source that fits inside your body. The shipment didn't come until last night," she growled. Badri turned on his vision processing and found her carefully removing restraints from his chest and arms.

"I'm pretty sure you're not going to thrash and reopen something, now," she explained without looking up. "Besides, you won't have to worry about pulling out wires anymore."

"You still don't want me to go," Badri said. It wasn't a question.

"Of course not," she said, "But there's nothing I can do to stop you, unfortunately. And believe me, I've tried. But now that you're lucid, I have no legal authority over you. So if you're absolutely certain that you're guilty, have fun testifying against me."

"What?" Badri asked suddenly.

"I have proof," Riaah said. "Proof that the other officers had been tampered with. And I think I've almost found out who did it. The program was rather ingenious, but it had to be installed at the same time as the base code, or at least while the base code was being updated. One of the Republic doctors has been working for the enemy."

"And it's not you," Badri added.

"It can't be me," Riaah said plainly. "I only worked on you and one of the others. There were several more incidents while you were out, and reports that indicated that there have been incidents on other planets. There is no way I worked on all of the cyborgs affected."

Badri stared at her, noticing the dark shadows under her eyes for the first time.

"Riaah, when was the last time you slept?"

"Not sure," she said, completely coherently. "Last week, maybe? I got almost five hours the morning before you were woken up the second time. That was the only reason that idiot managed to get in at all. Catch," she said, throwing a pile of clothes at him. "Get dressed. Sorry about the synthskin, but trust me, if you got me started on what happened with that now, you'd never get out on time."

Badri actually looked down at his body for the first time, and sure enough, large portions of synthskin were missing. The top layer over his chest was the metal that made the shape of his body, reaching up to his shoulder and down part of his arm, completely exposed. It made it almost painfully clear which parts had been completely replaced. He was wise enough not to ask.

"You have twenty minutes," Riaah said, stepping out to give him some semblance of privacy, not like it mattered. "Then, unfortunately, we have to go."

Throughout it all, it was easiest not to think. It was small, but the room seemed filled with officers. They sat like judges in front of him, leaving only Riaah and a small contingent of other witnesses behind him. Badri hadn't been paying attention beforehand, he was barely paying attention when he was called to the seat, but there he was. His shirt hung awkwardly over the uneven surface of his body. He felt itchy, uncomfortable, but he let it be. It was better than feeling nothing.

He sat at a table slightly lower than the long table in front of him. All five of the seats above him were filled with officers. "Please state your full name and rank for the record," was the first question from the man in the center left.

"Sergeant Badri Ravjanday Emras," Badri said without thinking. It seemed to be the right answer.

"And you are a cyborg, correct?" asked the same officer, who seemed to do most of the talking.

"Yes, sir," Badri replied.

"What circumstances were involved in your becoming a cyborg?"

"It was a medical necessity, sir," he said tersely. He was acutely aware of the pounding in his head, his shirt rubbing against bare plates, somehow more sensitive than skin… There was no other reason. There could be no other reason for _this_.

"Brought on by what?" the questioner asked. It occurred to Badri that he hadn't even been paying attention when the man was introduced. The uniform marked him as a Major, but that was all he knew.

"I was on a mission for the Republic military when our ship was shot down," he explained.

"I understand that you were the only survivor of your crew."

No, that wasn't right. Something was wrong.

 _(Welcome back, Corporal.)_

"No, sir," Badri said, pushing memories as far down as he could manage.

"Pardon?" the Major asked.

"I am now the last remaining survivor of that crew," Badri clarified. "There were three other survivors of the initial crash. One died from injuries after being transported off-planet. One died completing the mission we were sent to do. And the other died after transport," he said evasively.

"Who was the one who died 'after transport'?"

 _(How are you feeling?)_

He was determined to bring up those memories, wasn't he? "Sergeant Soen Carthers," Badri confirmed.

"And his cause of death was suicide?"

 _(Don't bother; I already know.)_

"Yes, sir." Toneless. No emotion. What was the point?

"He was also fitted with cybernetics after the crash, correct?"

"Yes, sir," Badri repeated.

"And you were both unconscious and not consulted when the decision to use cybernetics to save your lives was made?" the Major asked.

"Yes, sir." It was becoming routine.

"Did the cybernetics have anything to do with Sergeant Carthers's suicide?"

A quick hush fell over the room, followed by an outbreak of noise. Several people protested, but none as loudly as the doctor behind him.

"This questioning has nothing to do with the trial at hand!" Riaah shouted.

"I'm afraid I have to agree," said the ranking officer—a general?—from the center of the long table. "This is out of line."

 _(What does all—all this mean? For us? For them?)_

The arguing was still going on around him, but Badri was lost in his own thoughts. They swirled around him, fading back to black, to dark gray. Always back to death.

"Yes."

"What?" someone asked.

"What was that, Sergeant?" asked the Major.

"Yes," Badri repeated, this time slightly louder. "Carthers did kill himself because of the cybernetics."

"Did Sergeant Carthers—"

"I have already stopped this line of questioning, Major," the General said.

"Very well," conceded the Major. "We all know why we are here. Sergeant, would you care to describe what happened after you entered the house, in your own words?"

Badri couldn't help the laugh that escaped him.

"I'm curious as to why you find that funny," the Major asked.

"Not funny, sir, ironic," Badri explained rationally. "It was not clear at the time, but I realized afterwards that during most of the… the events, my language processing biocomputer was nonfunctional. In layman's terms, that means while I could hear what was going on and what was said, I could not understand or relate meaning to any spoken words." As much as he tried to keep neutral, the bitterness crept back into his voice.

"So you had no thoughts during this incident?" asked the Major skeptically.

"None that were coherent to speak aloud, no sir," Badri said. "My thoughts were in images, mostly, feelings, emotions…" he tried to describe, but found himself unsurprisingly at a loss for words. How did someone describe something that was inherently without words? "They were thoughts, but they were not in 'my own words,' so to speak," he finished, somewhat lamely.

Clearly becoming irritated, the Major asked, "Can you attempt to describe what your thoughts were, Sergeant?"

"Yes," Badri said, trying to translate his thoughts into words for later. "All of my systems were functioning when we first entered the house. I was suspicious because of how empty it was. In that area in Coruscant, if it's habitable there's at least going to be squatters. My first priority, however, was getting the girl to safety. When we found her, I ordered Private Yuo to take her out of the room, which was when the man showed up." He did his best to keep his voice free of emotion, free of judgment or sympathy. He would let them make their own decisions about his guilt, without his influence. "For some reason, he let the girl go, and the last thing I remember before… before things were… strange, I guess, was him hitting me on the head with something that sent an electric current through my body. The pain was… incredible. After that is when I lost language processing function."

"Was that the only cybernetic you lost the use of?"

"I—I'm not sure. Judging from the level of pain, the pain inhibitor chip was non-functional as well. Maybe a few other systems. I…" Badri quickly tried to come up with some way to explain the rush that went through his head, as the events happened so quickly he wasn't even sure if they were real. "The next thing that happened, I was moving. My body did not seem to respond to any of my conscious thoughts. But I could see, I could feel, I could hear, even if I couldn't understand what was being said. I was moving," he repeated, as if it would make anything clearer.

"And what happened then?" the Major asked, as if he didn't know the answer.

"I killed Rigil."

Another hush fell over the room. He had admitted the crime clearly, with no denial, which was a rare occurrence here.

"Why?" was the only question that followed.

"I don't know," Badri said firmly, trying desperately to keep all emotion out of his voice. It was becoming more difficult. "I do not honestly know, sir."

"You admit that you were the one to kill Corporal Iscom Rigil?" the Major confirmed.

"Yes."

"And were you the one who injured Private Chertan Brash?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," Badri repeated.

For a moment, the Major seemed to flail for a question, only coming up with, "What was in your mind at the time?"

"I… I wanted to die," Badri said clearly. "I had given Rigil an electromagnetic pulse generator earlier that morning, and the one thing I wanted was to get my hands on it and detonate it."

"Was this thought before or after you attacked the Corporal?"

Badri took a moment to run back through events, but he knew what had happened. "After, sir," he said. "There was no time to think before."

"So that did not influence the reason for his death?" he Major asked.

"Not to the best of my knowledge, sir."

"Did this… feeling change later?" he asked, still somewhat beached for questions.

"No," said Badri.

"What about directly before Private Yuo detonated the EMP?"

"I was…" Badri tried to think of the right word, but all he could come up with was, "Happy. And damn grateful."

"Did you have any regrets after the incident?" the Major asked.

 _(If any of you are going to regret this, don't bother coming. I can't have that kind of doubt on the team, not for a mission as reckless and dangerous as this. Private?)_

"Sergeant?" the Major prompted.

 _(Sir, I was the one who suggested this lunacy. There's nothing I regret. Unless we plan to just stand around talking.)_

"Regrets, sir?" Badri asked, pulling himself out of his thoughts. The memories were… unexpected. His old voice seemed to reverberate strangely in his mind.

"Are you proud of what you did?"

"No, sir," Badri answered, although there was no connection to regret in his mind. What did he regret?

"So you do regret what happened?" the Major asked.

"Only what I did, sir. Not what happened to me," Badri said, letting as little misery into his tone as possible.

The Major finally relented. "I have no more questions, sir."

"Sergeant Emras, you may return to your seat."

He stumbled more than walked back to his seat. He was still lost in thoughts of the past, so the events around him only floated through his head in bits and pieces, none of which were particularly important.

"Doctor Riaah Le'eth, MCD."

Riaah had been called up. She was going to tell them how it wasn't his fault, that he should be forgiven for what he had done, that he hadn't really been the one to do it.

"You have been working for the Republic Military…"

Lies, all lies. He had done it, it was his hands that had killed Iscom.

"…entire career…"

He was guilty of everything. He should have stopped himself. Since he didn't, there were two possibilities. Either he had done it, and he was guilty of the murder, and should be punished accordingly. Or he had not been in control of his body, as Riaah so claimed, and someone else had been controlling him from afar, in which case he was guilty as being the weapon of murder. In that case, how was he different from a droid, reprogrammed to do its master's bidding, used as a tool to point at a target and shoot on command? Nothing she tried to tell him made any sense.

"…Dantooine was my first post as a facility head."

The name of the accursed planet did cut through his thoughts. That was where it had all started, this pathetic, sorry excuse for a trooper had woken up for the first time with machines in his head…

"…Sergeant Carthers was under your care when he committed suicide?"

"Yes."

He was. He was there, in the room, talking to him. Soen was in the next room when he had…

"And did you not attempt to restrain or sedate him?"

There had been chaos, they had sedated Badri to keep him out of the loop, but he already knew, he had seen it in Soen's eyes earlier, he had already known.

"We tried, sir. We damn well tried, but I guess you train your men too well."

Too well. Well enough that they could only bring themselves down. Soen had. The EMP had been Badri's own plan, his device in case everything went wrong, and even Iscom couldn't pull it off. He had nearly beaten all three of them, he had come so close to murdering Brash, to murdering his entire team without even a blaster.

"…findings in the records of…"

Maybe they should think about that the next time they trained a cyborg. There was no one who had been able to match his physical strength on the team. If he hadn't set it up, all three of them would be dead. He would have murdered all of them. He could have.

Badri pushed back his chair and walked out.


	8. Chapter 8

Warnings: Attempted suicide, mention of a past suicide.

* * *

"Hey."

Badri laughed harshly. "What do you want?" he asked, turning around to face her.

Riaah smiled back at him. "So you have to crawl all the way over here to cry?" Riaah asked, taking a step just over the threshold of the room. "You know, you would get a lot more sympathy if you had cried in the room. The whole emotionless-machine-thing doesn't suit you."

"Did it ever occur to you that I might not want sympathy?" Badri growled.

"Did it ever occur to you that I don't care whether you want it or not?" Riaah shot back, walking until she was only a few feet away from him.

"You're a pain, you know that?"

"I try my best," Riaah said cheerfully, putting her hand in her pocket.

"Bad memories," Badri muttered, turning towards the wall again. "In there. They just kept trying to bring them up."

"Bad memories for both of us," Riaah mused, fingering the item in her pocket, toying with the cap.

 _(He's dead, isn't he?)_

 _(You're acting too cheerful.)_

Badri moved suddenly, but it was what Riaah had expected all along. He tore off the eyepatch and flung it across the room, but she was on him before he could do any more damage and sunk the needle into his arm. He tried to right himself, to continue his fight against his body, but the drugs wouldn't let him.

"Some days…" he struggled against the drugs, against the sleep he knew was coming, "I think… Soen… had the right… idea," he whispered, and was out.

Riaah slid him down the wall gently to a more natural sitting position, and crossed the room to retrieve the eyepatch. It was rather brilliant, if she did say so herself. It was designed to hide the cybernetic eye without impeding sight, and it had worked so far. It was the only piece that could be removed without tools, in case it did start to affect vision.

 _(Is that better?)_

She sat down beside him. There was no point in trying to move Badri until she could get help. She slid down into a ball, failing to ignore her own voice ringing in her head from another time.

 _(SOMEONE, GET OVER HERE! Hold down his arms! You! Get me—DAMMIT! No, no, no, no! Stop—come back, dammit! Don't you dare…)_

"I never fall for the same trick twice," she whispered sadly, even though there was no way Badri could hear her. It was enough that she could hear herself above the echoes of memories that would never be silent.

* * *

"Skyliss!"

The Major turned around to find one very, very, angry doctor calling his name.

"Skyliss!" Le'eth shouted, which, considering the noise level in the room, was rather unnecessary. Everyone could hear her, but then again, that was usually her point.

"What the hell are you playing at?" she demanded as soon as she was within arm's reach.

"What do you mean?" he asked coolly.

"You know damn well what I mean," she growled. "I prefer not having to come to court-martials equipped with sedatives in case my patients do something─something rash─and I like it even better when I don't have to use those sedatives─which I just did."

Doctor Le'eth stared at him, looking for a change in his expression. Skyliss tried very hard not to remember that she was in charge of how pleasant his next physical would be. He did try to remember, that he was, in fact, a major, and could very well go to a different doctor for his physical if he wanted to. Which he didn't. Damn.

"Explain," she said. It was not a request.

"What would you like me to explain?" he asked, knowing he was only digging his hole deeper. He wondered whether it might be easier to get himself blown up before his next physical. It might be more pleasant if he was unconscious.

Le'eth stopped frowning. That was a very bad sign. "I want you to explain why the hell you were so─so offensive during that hearing. And don't feed me some bullshit about finding out what really happened, because you know as well as I do that this was Imperial work." Her expression had changed back to a slight frown, which was nearly a relief. Nearly.

Skyliss finally sighed, "I did what worked."

Le'eth promptly interrupted, "What does that mean?"

"I mean," Skyliss started, "that I did what was best for the boy."

"And how─" Le'eth started again, but this time it was Skyliss who interrupted her.

"Would you please let me finish?" he asked. Le'eth closed her mouth so fast Skyliss would have sworn she bit her tongue. However annoyed she was, she still nodded for him to continue.

"I needed to convince Sergeant Emras that he wasn't the one to blame, and the only way I could do that is if I did my best to prosecute him. What do you think he would have done if he came away from the court-martial feeling as if he had gotten off easy?" he asked. "Do you honestly think he would have believed it?"

Le'eth shifted her weight and sighed angrily. Skyliss waited for her response.

"No, dammit, I guess not," she admitted.

"The only way he can move forward is if he realizes that he isn't to blame. That kid has a lot of baggage already."

"He's never─never done anything like this before," Le'eth insisted angrily.

"Look," Skyliss said. "Sergeant Emras is one of the best we have. He was at the academy on Corellia while I was, and I saw his scores. Quite frankly, they're some of the highest we've seen. But in all that time, I only talked to him once, during his first year. He was already broken, Le'eth. He was broken before he ever came to you."

Le'eth's voice finally softened as she asked, "How long after... Coruscant?"

"A few months. Not long at all. My point is this: that kid internalizes his guilt. He doesn't let it out, but he doesn't forgive himself either. If no one had dragged that guilt to the surface, he would have gone on letting it eat away at him until it tore him apart from the inside. That's why I pushed him. That's why I brought up Camooine, and Sergeant Carthers, because I knew no one else would."

"That's an underhanded move," Le'eth accused, anger shading back into the purple of her eyes.

Skyliss shrugged. "I'll be straightforward then; we need soldiers like Sergeant Emras. There are several things out on the front that are beginning to worry command. Moving SpecForce training off of Corellia to Coruscant was not an idealistic rebuilding move. The treaty is not going to last forever, in fact, I wouldn't give it more than a decade at the most. We are going to be fighting a full war again very soon, and when that time comes, we're going to need all the help we can get. Leaders who are young, brilliant, and committed to the fight. I don't think there's any other member of SpecForce right now who fits that better than Sergeant Emras."

Le'eth glared at him, but it was more out of habit than anything else. "Fine," she said. "Fine! Do what you want. Make your soldiers. Just don't forget that they are people too."

She turned her back on Skyliss, almost gliding out of the room.

Before she could get further than a few meters away, Skyliss asked the question that had been on his mind. "How is he?"

Le'eth stopped, but didn't turn around. "He'll be fine," she said bitterly. "As I mentioned, I was prepared."

"I am sorry," Skyliss apologized. "I never intended to push him over the edge. Only to give him a little nudge."

"Even a little nudge can be too much if you're clinging to the precipice already," Le'eth replied. "Thank you for letting me leave."

Skyliss shrugged, even though she couldn't see him behind her back. Most likely. With doctors, one was never quite sure. "What else would I have done?"

And with that, she continued out of the room, back to the medcenter where a drugged trooper was waiting, unaware of the manipulations made by the people watching him. They were for his own good, but more than that, they were for the good of the Republic. That was what they were all fighting for, some on the front lines, some behind the scenes, but the goal was the same. For better or for worse, he had ended up as an important piece in that plan. Somehow, Skyliss suspected that when Sergeant Emras did find out, and Skyliss knew he would, he wouldn't mind all that much.


	9. Chapter 9

Waking up was once again the sudden ordeal caused by a lack of drugs. The disorientation that came with it was becoming annoyingly familiar to Badri. It took a minute to sort through the short-term memories that had been abruptly moved to long-term, but—

 _Stars, it was always something stupid. Idiotic. Selfish, unthinking, insensitive, self-absorbed—_

"I'm sorry," Badri apologized, not even bothering to check to see if Riaah was in the room. He knew that she had to be; if he was awake and she wasn't yelling at someone, it was her doing. It felt completely inadequate to just apologize after he had said something so callous. He looked up, finding Riaah looking at a screen, her back to him.

"Riaah," he started.

"Don't," she said. "Just... don't."

Badri waited for her to turn and look at him, but she didn't. Instead she walked past him to another monitor.

"I can't put you on anti-depressants, unfortunately, or I would," she said.

"I wouldn't refuse the drugs," Badri said quietly.

"It's not that," Riaah said sheepishly, finally turning to face him. "It's the anti-polymers. The tests I ran, um, the reactions were impressive, actually, but not something we'd want to recreate in your bloodstream."

Badri shook his head. _That's all I'm ever going to be: a problem and a massive guilt complex. After all she's done for me, I still can't seem to get anything right_ , he thought, adding out loud, "What did they decide?"

"Not guilty under the circumstances," Riaah said smugly. "Your little display in the back actually helped the case for you being controlled externally, so I suppose it worked out in the end," she shrugged.

"You know I didn't mean that," he pleaded.

Riaah sat down on the side of the bed, rubbing her face with her hands. "It was a long day. Well, a long set of weeks, really. Funny how that always seems to happen when you show up."

"Funny how you seem to keep saving my life," Badri countered.

"What's left of it," Riaah laughed sadly.

Badri pulled himself up so he could look the doctor at eye level. "The fact that there's any of it left is all because of you," he said. "Thank you."

Riaah looked at him curiously. "There's no need to thank me," she said, bewildered. "I'm not even sure what you'd be thanking me for."

"For not infecting me with an Imperial virus," Badri suggested. "For saving my life from the accident, from myself. For being stubborn enough not to write us all off as lost cases at the start."

"I'm not sure I made the right call on that one," Riaah joked.

Badri managed to smile back at her. "Well, you have a third of a chance left. I'll try not to disappoint."

Riaah sighed, standing up again. "You also have a nasty habit of distracting me when I should be working on you," she said.

"About that," Badri said tentatively. "May I make one request?"

"Depends. I refuse dates with patients on principle, however."

Badri laughed. "This isn't that kind of date," he said. "I was wondering, since you're here on Coruscant now, which is actual civilization unlike godforsaken Dantooine, if you would be my permanent physician. And the only one I go to for regular check ups."

Riaah turned back to look at Badri. "What brought this on?" she asked.

"Well, I'd rather not repeat this experience," Badri said lightly, "and if there's one thing I've learned it's that trust isn't to be lightly given, especially to doctors. I can only think of two doctors I would trust to kill me on a regular basis and not corrupt my programming, and you're the only one who's still alive," he admitted. "I can't go back to letting any random doctor take care of my operations, not anymore. Not after this."

"Alright," Riaah relented, "you don't have to keep going. I will, on one condition. You have to stop coming in dead."

Badri smiled at that. "I make no promises that I can't reliably keep, but I'll try."

"Close enough," Riaah conceded. "Six months?"

"One month."

Riaah stared at Badri. "What?" she asked.

"I would like to have a check up in one month," Badri repeated.

"Only a month? That's absurdly soon," Riaah said.

"Just to check my programming. Just make sure that nothing slipped through, or that something was added, or... just to check. Please," he pleaded.

Riaah sighed. "You know this is ridiculous, right?" When Badri nodded, she said, "Alright, fine, if you insist. I'll set something up. Now, if you would let me get back to my actual work...?" she asked rhetorically, heading back over to the largest of the monitors.

 _It's going to be a long month_ , Badri thought as he laid back on the bed.

"So it's official, then?"

"Zeta Kappa," Supreme Commander Rans said, confirming the title which would be on all records. "Officially logged as an Incident with Imperial forces, although it appears there was only one agent. A doctor on Corellia. The Cyborgs on other planets had all been to see her; she was a recommended name for almost a decade."

"It would have been nice if we had caught her sooner," Oro said, his sarcasm abundantly clear.

"She had an airtight background and references," the director of Corellia Security defended. "This was planned over decades, and we were just unlucky enough to see it come to fruition."

"Unlucky," Riaah muttered under her breath. "Do you know how many people were affected by this?"

"Which is why I'm putting a new policy in place, effective immediately," Rans said. "All Cyborgs in the Republic Military must see a doctor who has had a full set of background checks and given a security clearance equal or higher than the officer's own. Which means that you," Rans looked over the holographic doctors, although Riaah thought he lingered on her for an extra second, "will need to apply for security clearance to continue working on your patients."

"Not the ones currently awaiting surgery?" one doctor asked.

"Yes, all patients," Rand repeated. "I'm having the clearances expedited for doctors who are currently dealing with this…"

"Disaster," Riaah prompted.

Rans gave her an unamused look. "Incident," he continued. "I will be sending around packets shortly, and I'll make the necessary arrangements so anyone who needs to operate within 24 hours will have clearance by tomorrow morning."

"What about non-cyborg patients?" Riaah asked, thinking of the private waiting for his transplant.

"Standard procedures still apply," Rans said. "No special clearance is necessary."

"CorSec will be following the same new procedures," their commander said, "but clearance for one will be accepted for either."

The doctors breathed a collective sigh of relief; many of them worked with both CorSec and Military patients on a regular basis, and did not want to go through the hassle of security clearance twice.

"Information about clearance will be sent out momentarily," Rans continued. "In the meantime, continue the good work. Remember that your efforts may have saved hundreds of lives. Rans out."

Riaah turned her own holo off. She didn't want to deal with the other doctors, not today. She was done dealing with people. The past week had been a whirlwind, as she testified at six different hearings and tried to keep her damn fool patients alive. Well, one damn fool, at least. She was tracking… Her chart told her twenty-seven patients, but most of them were in the hands of other doctors or nurses. Riaah's name was attached to every cyborg who came through the hospital, but she couldn't personally handle them all, not right now. There were about a dozen she was focusing her care on, all injured and damaged severely by recent events. One of which was the damn fool.

She checked the clock, then her schedule. Fifteen minutes. She could spare fifteen minutes.

Riaah set an alarm on her datapad, placing it next to her. With her head on the table, she was asleep in seconds.


	10. Chapter 10

For the seventh time that week, Dune found herself in the observation room outside of Sergeant Emras's room. And this time, she wasn't going to take no for an answer. Of course, it helped that Dr. Le'eth was otherwise occupied, leaving only her nurse to respond when Dune pressed the buzzer at the door.

"Private Yuo," he greeted as he stepped outside, the door sliding shut behind him. All of the staff who worked around the sergeant had gotten to know Yuo by this point. "Can I help you?"

"Can I see Sergeant Emras?" she asked, point-blank.

"He's asleep," the nurse told her.

"I don't care," Dune shot back. "He's been asleep the last six times I've tried to visit. I'm going to wait in there until he wakes up if I have to."

"He's probably not actually asleep," the nurse said casually, as if he was discussing the weather. "The sergeant told me to tell you that if you came by."

Dune was nearly fuming, at Emras for trying to keep her away and at herself for not realizing earlier. "So, can I go in?" she said icily.

The nurse walked over to the door, typing something in the keypad. The door slid open again. "Don't say I didn't warn you. He isn't in great shape."

That, of course, was an understatement. _Even so,_ Dune thought, _he looks a lot better than he did the last time I saw him._ Which was the day of the trial. He was propped upright by the bed, and it appeared Dr. Le'eth had been slowly replacing the skin on his cybernetics. His arm was still uncovered, and Dune could see at least three bags feeding his IV line. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he looked away as soon as he saw her enter.

"Sir," Dune said, aggravation clear in her voice.

Emras gave a short, bitter laugh. "Don't bother," he said.

"Emras, then," Dune continued.

He turned back to her. There was something desperate in his eyes, and it unnerved her. "No, not—why are you even here?" he demanded.

"Why am I here?" Dune shot back. "I'm here because I got tired of hearing your bullshit excuses for not seeing me! You do realize that the last time I saw you, it was right before you tried to kill yourself!"

"Damned if I didn't try," he said quietly.

Dune was fuming. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

He gestured wordlessly to his side, following the gesture around to the IV.

"Dammit, that's not what I mean," she said. "Why did you tell the nurse to turn me away?"

"Because," he shook his head, "you don't need me. You shouldn't bother with me, not after all this."

"I thought we were friends," Dune said. The words fell out of her mouth without passing her brain. She thought they sounded childish, but at the same time, she felt hurt. Wasn't he treating her like a child, keeping secrets and keeping her away?

"I thought so too."

"Then why didn't you tell me—tell us?" she insisted.

"Tell you what?" Emras snapped. "Hello, I'm your new commander. By the way, I died last year, I hope that won't be a problem." His mock introduction was all sarcasm.

"Yes!" Dune said, completely serious.

"You never would have been able to trust me," Emras told her. "You would have been on the lookout for any sign of weakness."

"You could have told us you were on Blackbirds!"

Emras froze. "How did you—who told you?"

 _Oops._ Dune realized, much too late, that she had learned that particular detail from his file. With some apprehension, she decided it was easier to come clean completely. "I've read your file, sir—both of them. Or at least what was at my clearance level. I know you were part of Blackbird Squad. And I know you got your cybernetics because of what happened to the team."

Emras turned away again.

"I know you didn't have a choice," Dune finished.

"No, I didn't," Emras said quietly. Dune could have sworn he was crying.

"Sorry, sir," she said awkwardly, her anger mostly gone. "I can go, if you want."

Emras nodded. Dune had expected it, but it still stung.

"I'll be back," she told him. He didn't say anything, so Dune left, wondering if she had made an irreversible mistake this time.

* * *

It had been a frantic six hours. To be fair, it barely ranked on Riaah's scale, but trying to tend two dozen patients was extreme, even for her. And this time, it wasn't even one of the cyborgs.

No, it was that blasted private Badri had injured. Riaah had left him on her rotation because she felt guilty, and because there was still and over-abundance of patients for the other doctors to work on, even when she took every cyborg in the building. Sure, she had said she wanted a more exciting post than Dantooine, but this was ridiculous.

She had hoped to finish with the private while waiting for her security clearance to come in, but, as always, things did not go as planned. A sudden rejection of the cloned stomach lining had nearly cost the private his life, and his situation was much more perilous now than it had been. He was stable again, sure, but he was still a mess internally, and another failure like that could be disastrous. To make things worse, one of Riaah's colleagues had taken an interest in his case, and had been badgering the director all morning to have him moved out of Riaah's primary care. Thankfully, he had more sense than that, but it was irritating all the same.

"Doctor! Doctor Le'eth!"

The nurse came rushing out of the room as Riaah had turned the corner. Either Darren had given up, or he was remarkably good at talking down irate doctors. Given her own reputation, Riaah suspected the latter.

"I'm sorry, she's insisting to see you," Darren said. He gave her a pleading look, which did absolutely nothing. "Dr. Calvers is insisting that Private Brash should be fitted with cybernetic organs to eliminate the possibility of rejection—"

Riaah had already started back to the room. "And obviously has no idea how cybernetics work," she said. "Eliminate the possibility of rejection, ha! Calvers should take a look at Badri's log sometime; he's got the worst damn case of—"

"Dr. Le'eth! We were just talking about you."

Riaah hadn't waited on ceremony to enter Calvers's office. The doctor was in the room, along with what appeared to be two junior nurses. Riaah recognized neither, but one flinched at the sight of her. So either Riaah had worked with the girl before, or her reputation had preceeded her. Or quite possibly both.

"Likewise," Riaah said caustically. "I hear you've come up with some ridiculous proposal for my private."

"He's not yours, Le'eth," Calvers said calmly. "Frankly, I'm not sure why he's in your division if he's not being fitted with cybernetics."

"Because I've worked with this type of injury before," Riaah explained.

"Then you should know that cybernetics are the best choice after failing the cloning operation."

"One operation," Riaah insisted, "and that's exactly why I'm planning to try again."

"Le'eth, we can wait for your security clearance to come in if we have to," Calvers suggested.

"Your clearance came in this morning—" Darren started, but Riaah interrupted him.

"No," she said fiercely. "This has nothing to do with that."

"Doctor Le'eth, after one rejection, the chances of cloned cells being accepted are not good," Calvers said.

Riaah shrugged. "I don't care. I'm the only one here cleared for cybernetics, and I refuse to install any on this patient. That's final."

"You have to give an alternate solution," she repeated. "If this doesn't work—"

"Do I look like I give a damn?" Riaah said. "This is going to work. It has to work. There isn't another option."

And with that, Riaah stormed out of the room, leaving Darren to run damage control once again.


	11. Chapter 11

The man had been here, drinking, all night. It was nearing the early hours of the morning now, about the time when the bartender started cutting people off, but this man wasn't high on his list. He could still hold his glass without spilling, and the dog tags that hung around his neck showed that he had earned as many drinks as he could stand. The military population that frequented the bar rarely caused trouble. Of course, when they did, the soldiers were harder to sedate, but the bartender was loathe to cut servicemen off preemptively.

The man next to the soldier, however, was testing the bartender's last nerve. The man had stumbled in, already drunk, and ordered another up from the bar. He took the empty seat next to the quiet soldier and tried to engage the man in loud conversation. The bartender was watching the pair closely. The soldier was a regular at the bar, and usually kept to himself, but he had once worked himself into such a state that he passed out and had to be carried out by his companions. He had not had nearly as much tonight, but the loud patron seemed to be getting on everyone's nerves.

"Hell of a time we live in," he was saying. "Crazy world we live in. You hear 'bout the cyborgs? 'S everywhere on the news. Don't know how you could've missed it. Half-machine bastards up and killed a bunch of people. No reason at all."

The soldier didn't respond. The bartender wasn't sure if the drunk man was blind or just a complete imbecile, because there was no hiding the cybernetics the soldier had. Surreptitiously, the bartender made sure his blaster was in easy reach.

"Guy I knew was killed by one. Friend of a friend. Good guy. Real good guy." The man was stumbling over his words, speaking in slurred sentences. The bartender was tempted to take away the drink he was nursing, but it would be bad for business if he started taking from customers. Certainly the man would not be getting another.

"Goo' guy," he repeated. "Real sad. Funeral was today, y'know. Tha's where I was. All cried out now. Gotta drink back the tears," he toasted with his drink and drained it to half-empty.

The bartender would later reflect that it was lucky for the man that he set his mug down before he spoke again.

"Iscom, that was his name. Goo—"

At the name, the glass the soldier had been nursing shattered in his hand. Both the drunk man and the bartender turned to him, the drunkard appearing to notice the cybernetics for the first time.

"Hey. Hey!" the man exclaimed. "You're one of 'em bastards! You wanna—"

The drunkard never finished his threat. The soldier moved faster than the man could track, although it was well within the view of the bartender's trained eye. He had picked up a shard of the glass as a weapon and slammed it into the man's hand with a practiced ease. Anger radiated off the soldier. The drunk man had gone pale.

"I suggest you get someone to look at your hand," the bartender told the man in a level voice. It cut through the silence in the bar as cleanly as the glass had cut his hand. The soldier pulled the glass out in another trained maneuver, and the man stumbled to his feet, sprinting out the door.

The soldier gathered the shards into a neat pile on the table using only his left hand. He stared at it carefully when he had finished. "Sorry about the mess," he apologized. Either he was amazingly skilled or his hand was also cybernetic, because the only blood on the bar surface was from the drunk man.

The bartender shrugged. The soldier was quickly becoming a regular, and had earned a little leeway when faced with someone who seemed determined to light a fire. He brought around a trash bin and the soldier swept the shards in without being prompted. There was something…

"You're Coruscanti," the bartender said to the soldier. It wasn't a question. "You used to sneak in here with those other kids. Underage, the lot of you."

The soldier looked up, surprise clearly visible on his face. "You have a good eye. I didn't expect to be recognized."

"An eye for detail helps with the job," the bartender dismissed.

"I'm legal now," he added. The faintest smile brushed the corner of his mouth, disappearing just as quickly.

"You look like you've earned one on the house." The bartender moved to get him another, but the soldier waved a negative.

"My doctor is liable to kill me as it is. Put it towards my tab." The bartender nodded, but there was no hint of a smile this time. The soldier left with a nod and a grimace, and the bartender wiped the blood off the counter.

* * *

Dune was sitting on the edge of Emras's bed, swinging her legs back and forth, when he spoke.

"Stars, if you don't stop doing that, at least move off the damn bed."

"Sorry, thought you were actually asleep," Dune said. She moved to the chair next to the bed instead.

"Just hungover," Emras groaned.

"How do you get hungover in a hospital?" Dune asked.

"You don't. You sneak out and get wasted in a bar," Emras said. "The trick is to stop while you can still sneak yourself back in."

Dune laughed. "There's no way Dr. Le'eth would miss that."

"Of course she knows, but have you seen how many patients she has? She doesn't have time to give me grief about it."

They sat in silence for another minute. This time, it was Dune who broke it.

"You heard about Brash, right?"

"Yes," Emras said.

"It wasn't your fault," Dune said, almost out of habit. Emras didn't respond, so she continued. "Dr. Le'eth says the operation tomorrow will be successful."

"Of course she does," he repeated.

"We should be there when he wakes up."

Emras actually propped himself up, staring at Dune as if she had grown a third eye. "Are you insane?"

"He should see familiar faces," she pointed out. "He's been comatose for nearly a month."

"Your face, yeah," Emras said. "The last time he saw me…" He let himself slide back down onto the pillows. "Yuo, it's a terrible idea for so many reasons."

"Give me one."

"I was probably the last thing he saw before, y'know," he finished lamely, as if he couldn't bring himself to say the words.

"So it will be good to see you as yourself again," Dune insisted.

"But that was me as myself—as far as either of you knew," he added as Dune opened her mouth to speak.

"I knew it wasn't you," she said.

"Did you? Really?" he challenged.

"Yes."

Emras made an irritated groan. "You know what? I will. Just to prove what a terrible idea this is, I'll come with you."

"You'll see," Dune said. "Brash will understand. We're a team, after all."

"We were," Emras said quietly.

Dune spent the next half-hour filling him in on other various news, but Emras didn't say another word. Dune knew she was right, though. Brash would understand, he had to. Just like he had to wake up.

She steadfastly ignored the little voice in the back of her mind telling her that she was wrong on both counts.

* * *

AN: Next chapter is the "last" chapter, followed by two epilogues.


	12. Chapter 12

"Welcome back, Private."

Brash's eyes fluttered open. He seemed to focus on Dune first.

Dune's heart was pounding. It had been almost a month since the team had been shattered, and now the last member was coming to.

 _Well, the last member alive._ She tried not to think it, but found it impossible to shut out the thought.

"Brash, can you hear me?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah," he whispered hoarsely. He tried to look around, confused. "But what—You," he said, looking straight at Emras. "What is he doing here?" he asked Dune.

"What do you mean?" Dune asked nervously, her eyes fixed on Brash.

"You were there!" Brash exclaimed angrily. "You saw what he did! That—that monster is what killed Rigil!"

Emras stood up suddenly, knocking his chair back but not over. Dune couldn't bear to meet his gaze as he walked out of the room, choosing to stare at the bed sheets instead.

"Badri," Doctor Le'eth said as the door opened. He walked out anyway. Le'eth stood up to follow, saying to Dune, "Just make sure Brash doesn't overexert himself. I'll be back."

Dune watched as she left the room. As soon as the door closed, Brash spoke again.

"Why did you let him in here?" Brash asked incredulously. "For that matter, why isn't he locked up? You know as well as I do that he killed Rigil."

Another stab to the gut. Each accusation seemed to carry physical force. Dune was starting to feel sick looking at the seriousness of Brash's expression. But he doesn't know, she reminded herself. Not yet.

"He has three biocomputers," she said quietly.

"What?" Brash asked.

"Sergeant Emras," Dune said. "He has three biocomputers in his brain, and two other chips. Almost half of his body is cybernetic."

"What does that have to do with—"

"The Imperials wrote a virus," Dune continued, cutting Brash off. "They planted a doctor in the Republic Military who programmed it into every Cyborg that she worked on. This happened for decades, and no one realized because the program had never been run. Then the Imperials decided to test it, or started whatever big movement they had in mind, or something. So the Republic got suspicious of their Cyborg officers. Reports were classified, but almost everyone knew of those three incidents. Even you did, although you didn't think anything of it. You remember that?" she asked.

"Yeah," Brash said curiously. "You came and asked me if I had heard about it, and what I thought, and I told you it was a load of bullshit. You still thought there was something to the reports, didn't you? Well, turns out you were right," he said caustically.

"That doctor worked on Badri months ago, before he was even our CO. That program was in his head the entire time, and he didn't even know it."

"So what, you're trying to tell me he isn't guilty?" he asked. "It's not that easy."

"There was already a court-martial; they already determined that he isn't guilty," Dune said simply. "I'm just trying to make you understand what happened."

"Are you saying you don't blame him at all for what happened?" Brash glared at her. "Because there's nothing that could change that feeling."

This was it. She had to tell him. Dune closed her eyes. "You almost had cybernetics installed."

When she opened her eyes again a second later, Brash was staring at her blankly.

"What?" he asked weakly.

"They tried using cloning to repair the injuries to your stomach," Dune told him. His face had gone completely pale. "There was some trouble during the operation; I'm not entirely sure what, but it was serious. They had to scrap that, and they were going to use cybernetics instead. It was Doctor Le'eth who talked the others out of it. She was the one who was in here before," she explained.

Brash didn't respond; it looked like he couldn't. As far as Dune could tell he was in shock at the mere thought of being minutes from becoming a cyborg, not to mention a few steps from death's door.

"That's what happened to Emras," she continued, lowering her voice as gently as possible. "Not the failed cloning or the stomach injuries, but being operated on while unconscious. To save his life."

Dune stood up, but Brash didn't notice. He was obviously lost in his own thoughts. Dune couldn't imagine that situation. If she tried to think about being turned, having cybernetics installed against her will or even without her knowledge, her mind blanked. There was no previous experience she could relate it to or base it on. She knew in an abstract sense that she could die in the line of duty; they all knew that when they signed up. But the realization that she could not only die, but become something else at the hands of doctors who had only the best intentions was never something she had given any thought to. As far as she could tell, neither had Brash. Now he had been forced to think about it, because it had almost happened to him. It had happened to their commander, and that had been what had gotten them in this mess in the first place.

"I'm going to leave now," she said. There was nothing else for her to do, not until Brash had come to terms with what had happened. "Doctor Le'eth should be back in a few minutes." Dune gave one last look at her teammate before heading to the door.

"Yuo."

Dune looked back at Brash. His look was pleading, but he knew. She knew that he knew what had happened. He just needed the confirmation before he could move on.

"Rigil is dead."

Brash closed his eyes. "Thank you."

Dune wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but it wasn't thanks. "You're welcome," she said, "I guess," and closed the door behind her.

* * *

AN: And with that, we have the last official chapter! There are two epilogue chapters coming after this, but this is the "final chapter."


	13. Epilogue 1: Six Months Later

AN: As the chapter is titled, this takes place approximately six months after chapter 12. During that time, Badri has been reassigned to deskwork, at his own insistence. It goes unmentioned here, but Brash has nearly made a full recovery at this point.

* * *

"Hello?"

Riaah set down the datapad she had been using for paperwork. "Badri?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, coming fully inside the office. "The front desk said you would be here."

"Well, you found me," said Riaah, standing up and turning him back out the door. "Of course, this isn't the best place for major surgery—"

"No, of course not," Badri interjected.

"—So if we could just head to the actual patient rooms?" she asked, leading him away. He followed somewhat nervously. This was the eighth time in as many months that Badri had come to have an evaluation. According to Personel, he was only required to be assessed once every four months, but he wasn't taking any chances.

"Sit down," Riaah said, and Badri took the same seat on the operating table. It was becoming routine: the wires, the flashing lights, the rhythmic lines, the-

"Not a chance."

"What?" Badri asked, the routine broken.

"I'm not operating on you today," Riaah said. She detached the wire from his wrist, and began to remove the ones on his chest. Badri pulled away.

"Riaah, you okayed this when I scheduled it!" Badri protested.

"Not happily, and against my better judgment. Now I'm changing my mind," she said firmly, and ripped the last wire off his chest.

"Four and a half months!" Badri yelled, suddenly losing his temper. "That program was in my head for more than four damn months!"

"Then two months without being wiped isn't going to make you into an Imperial puppet," Riaah combated calmly, reaching for the wires on his back. "Look, you're not about to win this one. You can't force me to operate on you; I'm the doctor here. If you want someone to scrub your head today, be my guest, but find another doctor to do it."

She continued before he could interrupt, turning around to face him. "Do you want to know what you're doing to yourself?" Riaah asked. "You're dying, Badri, and not just every time I take the cybernetics offline. The stress of the cybernetics was always rough on your body, but doing a full systems check once a month has damaged your cells an alarming amount. Not to mention that each time the pump goes offline you lose about a month of your life expectancy, and that amount is projected to increase exponentially with this schedule, even without a full work-up. You need time to recover, because I don't know how much longer your body will last like this."

Badri sat back down, running his hand through his hair. "Another month?" he asked.

"I can certainly see you in a month, although I make no promises about surgery." Riaah watched him curiously. "You know that it wasn't a remote slice, right?" she asked. Badri looked up at her. "The program," she clarified. "It was added directly to the base code during a checkup. Wouldn't that make coming here more dangerous than being out in the field?"

"It wasn't you," Badri said dully. "I trust you."

"Well then, trust me when I say there is no way to get a remote slice into your system," Riaah insisted. "Even if they could get the signal into your head, which is nearly impossible, they would have to break through every security layer the Republic has ever thought up."

Badri sighed. "Feeling better now?" Riaah asked.

"A little," he admitted, although he was still aggravated.

"Feeling like it would be okay if you weren't cut open today?" she joked. Badri laughed, but it was forced.

"I think that would be okay," he relented. "I think I can last another month." He sighed, the real reason for his nervousness slipping out. "They're trying to get me back out in the field, though. I don't think I can do that."

"You should take it," Riaah said, taking a seat next to him on the chair. "Deskwork doesn't suit you."

"Deskwork is where I feel safe," said Badri.

"But you're not happy there," Riaah finished.

"Of course not," he agreed. "I wouldn't have done all that work to get back on active duty if I was. I just can't take the risk of hurting anyone else. What use is a pawn that's controlled by the other side?"

"Pretty useful, once it can choose which side it wants," replied Riaah. "What was I just saying about you not being infected?" she prodded, poking him in the side.

"I know, I know," Badri sighed, "But it wasn't that easy. It's still not."

"I have three words for you," Riaah said in all seriousness. "Jedi. Mind. Control."

That got a real laugh out of Badri. "Okay, you have me there. I try to avoid the battles against Sith as much as possible, though."

"Your record seems to say otherwise."

"So, I'm not always successful at avoiding them," Badri shrugged. "It happens. Sometimes you just wind up on Korriban."

"Nice try, but you're not getting off that easy," Riaah insisted, seeing through his feeble attempt to derail the conversation. "I still think you should get back in the field. We both know you want to, and we both know you could actually make a difference out there." She felt an unwelcome echo in her mind, but she knew Skyliss was right, damn the man.

 _(Leaders who are young, brilliant, and committed to the fight. I don't think there's any other member of SpecForce right now who fits that better than Sergeant Emras.)_

Because there was no doubting his commitment to the Republic, and for all his flaws and self-doubt, Emras _was_ brilliant. Riaah knew his record better than most, maybe better than all but Garza and Skyliss themselves. As much as he denied it, the raid on Korriban was his idea. If you took the technical view, he had never failed a mission—and even a less technical view would have to concede that no mission had been detrimental to the Republic. If it hadn't been for an Imperial plan years in the making, there is no way he would be sitting behind a desk. Dammit, just the thought pissed her off.

"I'll consider it," Badri conceded, drawing Riaah back out of her thoughts. "But I make no promises about where I'll end up," he added, carefully hedging his bets. They both knew he was only putting on appearances now.

"I don't need a promise," Riaah smiled triumphantly, standing up to retrieve her scheduling datapad, "I just need a date."


	14. Epilogue 2: Four Years Later

That is, four years after the "last" chapter. This is about three and a half years after the first epilogue.

Incidentally, that puts it slightly after the start of SWTOR-that is, this takes place right before the Coruscant storyline picks up.

* * *

Given how the rest of the trip to Coruscant had gone, the final descent had been amazingly smooth. No major turbulence, no mysterious passengers, no Imperials shooting at them. Even customs at the spaceport seemed faster than usual. _Maybe it's comes with the job,_ Badri thought. _I guess it would be an embarrassment if Havoc Squad got hung up at customs on the way to an incident._

"How do you work this thing?" Tuuli Starc asked, frustrated. "This stupid reader isn't taking my card."

 _Speak of the devil._ "Here, let me try," Badri said, taking her card. He flashed it over the terminal. No response. He pressed it right up against the reader, holding it there until—

"Ah! Thank you!" said Starc, taking back the card that Badri offered her. "That would have been embarrassing if it hadn't worked."

"You're telling me," Badri said.

"Oh, wow," Starc said, getting her first look at the Senate Tower.

Badri had to admit it was impressive. But it was nothing compared to the shorter homes that lay scattered around the city-world, glorious even in their state of chaos. A city struggling to rebuild, but still working. Still rebuilding.

"I've been here before, but it's impressive every time," Jorgan said. Badri watched Starc's eyes light up as she took in the sights. It was funny how the tourists' reactions were always over the largest, the tallest, the most publicized things. Badri knew what he was looking for; he knew what really mattered to the people he had left here. The scarce few who had survived.

"Emras!"

That voice... Badri thought. He turned around slowly, unsure of what he might see. Maybe the voice was just a trick of his mind, he thought, until there she was, running up to him.

"Sergeant Emras!" she called again. She ran all the way across the customs room, dodging people and waving all the while.

"Yuo," he said affectionately as she approached them.

"That's Specialist Yuo now!" she said cheerfully, stopping in front of Badri. He smiled.

"It's Lieutenant Emras as well," he joked.

Yuo's smile seemed to brighten. "That's great!" she said. She looked older now, but she hadn't lost that bit of youthfulness in her attitude. She stood off-center, hair still cut off and grinning from ear to ear.

"I heard about your promotion," she continued. "Havoc Squad; that's amazing! Are they your team?" she asked, gesturing to Jorgan and Starc.

"In a manner of speaking," Badri answered. "But never mind me, what are you doing here?"

Yuo looked up suddenly at the clock. "Shoot. I really should be going," she said. "We should catch up sometime. I know this great cantina that an old CO of mine told me about." She gave him a small smile, as if he were in on some joke.

Badri gave her a smirk back. "That CO might have wanted to take the team somewhere new once in a while," he replied.

"Well, you name the place and I'll gather the team," Yuo said. "We got some new recruits last week, and I've been meaning to take them out. By the Force, was I really that naïve when I started?"

"Yes," Badri laughed.

Yuo swore. "That explains a lot, then. Brash is still CO of the old team," she started, "we could—"

"I don't think that's a good idea," Badri interrupted. Yuo gave him a steady look.

"It's been three years," she said.

"It could never be long enough," Badri replied. "There's too much to fix, and too little to fix it with."

"I'm sure—" Yuo started.

"I'm sure that he still blames me, and that he doesn't want to see me," Badri said. Before Yuo could interrupt, he continued, "And I'm sure that I still blame myself, and that I don't want to see him. I don't think I could."

"You two," Yuo gave a disappointed sigh. "Alright. Well, are you going to be free at all while you're on-planet?"

"I don't know yet," Badri said honestly. "I just got here, and the mission is urgent."

"Who am I to keep you from it, then?" Yuo asked. "Go, we'll catch up later. Besides, I really need to get back to Brash. I'll see you around, I'm sure!" she said, running back off with a backwards wave. Badri just watched her leave.

"An old friend of yours?" Jorgan asked.

"A former teammate," Badri said, turning back to the bustle that was the rebuilding of Coruscant. It had been his home once, and it had almost been his home again. The Imperials seemed determined to shatter his home every time he thought he had one. This time he wouldn't make that mistake. His home was the Republic now, and the Imperials would have to kill every citizen and burn every planet before they could tear it from him. And they could only do that over his dead body.

"A lifetime ago."


End file.
